“Yes, deceiving you,” cried Maudie. “Daddy—daddy’s not gone away in an ordinary manner on business—oh yes, he calls it business, but he’s gone away with that woman.”
“Maud!”
“Harry saw them go away together, and you are watching for letters that never come—my poor, crushed darling,” Maudie cried.
“Harry saw them go? Them? You mean that person, that creature we saw dining with daddy at the Trocadero?”
Then Maudie burst forth with the entire story as she had told it to Julia.
“And that is why I come every day. I knew you would want some support, and as I am a married woman, I knew I should be more support than Julia, although she is so farseeing. It’s a bitter blow, darling, but bear it like the martyr you are. Of course, Harry will be awfully angry with me; he says you never ought to interfere between husband and wife, even when they are your own father and mother.”
“I would rather know the worst,” said Regina; “it is no kindness to keep a woman of my calibre in the dark. I can’t discuss it, Maudie darling, even with you. If your father has really left me for that other person I will bear the blow and face the world with what dignity I can. You—you had better not tell Harry that you have told me the truth, we will keep it a little secret between ourselves. I shouldn’t like to feel that because of your sense of justice to me the first little rift had come between yourself and your husband. You are lunching with me to-day, dear?”
She turned the conversation into a conventional channel with a skill which was truly admirable, and Maudie, who was inclined to take her color from another, took her cue on that occasion from her mother and answered in the same strain.
“No, I’m lunching with Harry’s mother. I’d rather stay here with you, darling, but if I don’t go now and again without Harry the old lady is inclined to be a bit cranky, and I want to keep in with her, you know.”