"It was not the housekeeper," said Jane quietly. "I smoke."
"We are digressing," said Mrs. Smith-Parvis sternly. "There are other instances of your lack of refinement, Miss Emsdale, but I shall not recite them. Suffice to say, I deeply deplore the fact that my children have been subject to contamination for so long. I am afraid they have acquired—"
Jane had drawn herself up haughtily. She interrupted her employer.
"Be good enough, Mrs. Smith-Parvis, to come to the point," she said. "Have you nothing more serious to charge me with than smoking? Out with it! Let's have the worst."
"How dare you speak to me in that—My goodness!" She half started up from her chair. "What have you been up to? Drinking? Or some low affair with the butler? Good heavens, have I been harbouring a—"
"Don't get so excited, momsey," broke in Stuyvesant, trying to transmit a message of encouragement to Miss Emsdale by means of sundry winks and frowns and cautious head-shakings. "Keep your hair on."
"My—my hair?" gasped his mother.
Mr. Smith-Parvis got up. "Stuyvesant, you'd better retire," he said, noisily. "Remember, sir, that you are speaking to your mother. It came out at the time of her illness,—when we were so near to losing her,—and you—"
"Keep still, Philander," snapped Mrs. Smith-Parvis, very red in the face. "It came in again, thicker than before," she could not help explaining. "And don't be absurd, Stuyvesant. This is my affair. Please do not interfere again. I—What was I saying?"
"Something about drinking and the butler, Mrs. Smith-Parvis," said Jane, drily. It was evident that Stuyvesant had not carried tales to his mother. She would not have to defend herself against a threatened charge. Her sense of humour was at once restored.