Mr. Brassfield and his affairs were as a city set upon a hill, and could not be hid. There was a maid in Elizabeth's home, and a maiden aunt who had confidential friends. A stenographer and bookkeepers were employed in the counting-room of the Brassfield Oil Company, and the stenographer had a friend in the milliner's shop, and an admirer who was a clerk in one of the banks. There were clubs and other organizations, social, religious and literary; and the people in all of them had tongues wherewith to talk, and ears for hearing.
Hence:
At the meeting of the Society for Ethical Research, Mrs. Meyer read an essay on "What Parsifal Has Taught Me," during the reading of which Mrs. Alvord described Miss Waldron's trousseau to Miss Finch and Doctor Julia Brown. Because of the conversation among these three, the president asked Doctor Brown, first of all, to discuss the paper. And Doctor Julia, who talked bass and had coquettish fluffy blond bangs and a greatly overtaxed corsage, said that she fully agreed with the many and deeply beautiful thoughts expressed in the paper.
"I'm sincerely glad Parsifal taught her something!" said the fair M.D. to her companions, as she resumed her seat. Mrs. Meyer was the only woman in the town who had ever been to Bayreuth, she added short-windedly in explanation of her remarks, and had lobbied herself into a place on the program on the strength of that fact.
"Does Bess know," asked Miss Finch, "about this mesmerist person?"
"Oh, there isn't anything there," said Doctor Brown, "I feel sure. Though his inti—ah, friendship with this Le Claire woman is, just at this time, in bad taste. But all men are natural polygamists, you know."
"They say," said the voice of a member from across the room, "that it will be quite a palace—throw everything else in Bellevale in the shade—entirely so."
"They are all talking of it," said Mrs. Alvord. "Jim says it seems odd to have this Mr. Blodgett looking into the Brassfield business. But everything is odd, now—the hypnotist and Mr. Blodgett, and Daisy Scarlett; she's still here."
"O——o!" said Doctor Brown, in a sinuous barytone circumflex.
"Really," said Miss Finch, who wore her dress high about the neck, and whose form was a symphony in angles, "such promiscuous associations may be shocking, but as to surprise—who knows anything of his life before he came here?"