"How could you be so cruel?" asked Jermyn.
"You inconsistent, incomprehensible couple. A moment ago you were complaining that——"
"But haven't you any mercy for Harry and Fenie?" asked Kate. "They are so ecstatically happy here."
"Quite right, my dear!" said Jermyn gravely. "Harry and Fenie, to be sure!"
"But they can see each other in New York quite as well as if they were here," argued Trif.
"But what is to become of me?" asked Kate. "If you go home, Fenie will go with you, and Harry will want to hurry after, and I can't remain here alone, and you are the only married woman of my acquaintance who is here, and who knows."
"My dear girl!" exclaimed Trif. "I beg a thousand pardons. Let me see; what can I do? I don't see what, except to caution Trixy very carefully; and as she is the most conscientious little thing in the world, and——"
"And the leakiest," added Kate.
"Be quiet, Kate! I won't have the dear child maligned. She never tells anything she is ordered not to—unless she is asked. I shall tell her that she will make great unhappiness for two people who love her dearly if she says anything to anybody about anything which she has heard or—ahem!—seen this evening. Of course, no one will question her, for no one has any reason to suspect anything, and, of course, nothing in the manner of either of you will give any ground for curiosity."