"If we do?" Mrs. Halstead raised her eyebrows. "Perhaps you have some method to suggest. I admit that for the moment I am baffled. She refused flatly last night to go out of mourning, and I was really thankful for it after reflection; we can at least keep her in the background now, until I have succeeded in eliminating some of those frightful gambling expressions from her vocabulary. She seems to have been passionately fond of the impossible person who brought her up. I shudder to think of the impression she would make now on our circle of friends. She doesn't seem in the least ashamed of her past environment, or desirous of concealing her connection with such a character."
The attorney chuckled.
"I wouldn't advise you to tackle that subject for awhile," he said. "You ought to have heard the flaying she gave me when I suggested that no one but the immediate family need know about her foster father. Her opinion of her respected grandfather, in comparison with Gentleman Geoff, was illuminating."
He gave them the gist of it, and Mrs. Halstead listened with tightened lips.
"I shall tell Willa quite plainly that we and our friends are not interested in her past but only in what she is and may become. She appears to have at least a glimmering of sense and she must soon perceive for herself how disgraceful the whole unfortunate affair would seem to outsiders." She paused. "There is something that I do not quite understand about Willa. You are sure, Mason, that she has no vulgar, clandestine affair on her hands?"
"Good heavens, I should hope not! We've got enough to contend with as things stand without that." The attorney bounced forward in his chair. "What on earth put such an idea into your head, my dear Irene?"
"She was already in the breakfast-room when I came down this morning, and I thought she looked remarkably fresh, but with these naturally pale people you never can tell." Mrs. Halstead, too, leaned forward impressively. "Willa said nothing about having been out, and naturally such a possibility never occurred to me, but Welsh tells me she drove up in a taxi-cab at half-past nine. She must have slipped out very early, for he did not see her go."
"Surely you questioned her?" her husband asked. North was speechless.
"'She had been out to take a look about the city.'" Mrs. Halstead shrugged. "She hadn't thought it worth while mentioning; she had always gone and come as she pleased."
"Exactly the same stall she gave me!" the attorney exploded. "We'd better look into this, for she gave me the slip half a dozen times on the train and in stations and I never could get any satisfaction out of her."