She had succeeded beyond her happy expectations. Mrs. McLane's eyes were flashing. Mrs. Ballinger looked like a proud silver poplar that had been seared by lightning. Sally burst into tears, and Miss Hathaway's large cold Spanish blue eyes saw visions of Nina Randolph, a brilliant creature of the early sixties, whom she had tried to save from the same fate.
"Be sure the bell boys will find it out," continued Mrs. Abbott unctuously. "And when it gets to the Union Club—well, no use for us to try to hush it up."
"As you are trying to do now!"
"You needn't spit fire at me. I feel as badly as you do about it. If
I've told just you four it's only to talk over what can be done."
"I don't believe there's a word of truth in the story. Probably that wretched servant is down on her for some reason. Madeleine Talbot! Why, she's the proudest creature that ever lived."
"She might have the bluest blood of the South in her veins," conceded Mrs. Ballinger handsomely. "I pride myself on my imagination but I simply cannot see her in such a condition."
"If it's true, it's Masters, of course," said Miss Hathaway. "The only reason I didn't fall in love with him was because it was no use. But he's the sort of man—there are not many of them!—who would make a woman love him to desperation if he loved her himself. And she'd never forget him."
"I don't believe it," said Mrs. Ballinger coldly. "I never believed that Madeleine was in love with Langdon Masters. A good woman loves only her husband."
"Oh, mamma!" wailed Sally. "Madeleine is young, and the doctor's a dear but he wasn't the sort of a man for her at all. He just attracted her when she was a girl because he was so different from the men she knew. But Langdon is exactly suited to her. I guessed it before any of you did. It worried me dreadfully, but I sympathized—I always admired Langdon—if he'd looked at me before I fell in love with Hal I believe I'd have married him—but I wish, oh, how I wish, Madeleine could get a divorce."
"Sally Ballinger!" Her mother's voice quavered. "This terrible
California! If you had been brought up in Virginia—"