"Nothing very significant; what was there to say?" Harriet answered. "Our meeting was entirely accidental. He had no idea of finding me; was as surprised as I was." She stopped abruptly, musing on some unpalatable thought. "You wouldn't know him, Linda. He is a perfect freak," she said, presently, "talks about Karma and Nirvana and I don't know what all! Whether he's a Theosophist or a Brahmin I don't know--"
"For Heaven's sake!" Mrs. Davenport commented, in healthy surprise and contempt.
"New thought, and poetry, and the occult, and Tagore and the Russian novelists, and the Russian music," Harriet said, "he lectures about them and he has been extremely successful! He wears pongee coats and red ties, and has his hair long, and--well, you never saw women act so about anything or anybody!"
"Royal Blondin!" Linda exclaimed, aghast. "Perhaps their making fools of themselves will make it not worth his while to bother you," she speculated, hopefully.
"He's having dinner with the Carters to-night," Harriet said. To this Linda could only ejaculate again an amazed:
"Royal Blondin!" And as Harriet merely nodded, in the gloom, she added, vigorously, "Why, he hadn't a PENNY! He was always an idiot--he didn't have enough to EAT ten years ago!"
"Well, he has enough to eat now! Ward told me that he gets three hundred dollars for his drawing-room talks--his 'interpretive musings', he called them. And he has a book of poetry out, and he reviews poetry for some magazine--"
"Well, THAT--" Mrs. Davenport was still dazed with astonishment and indignation. "That REALLY--" she began, and stopped, shaking her head. "Tell me EVERYTHING you said!" she commanded.
"I will!" Harriet's voice fell flatly. "I came home to talk it over with you." But it was fully five minutes later that she began the inevitable confidences. "We talked--Roy and I--" she said, briefly. "He doesn't belong in my life, now, any more than I do in his! We simply agreed to a sort of mutual minding of our own business--"
"Thank God!" Mrs. Davenport said, fervently. "He--he doesn't want to--he doesn't still feel--he won't worry you, then?" she asked somewhat diffidently. Harriet's laugh had an unpleasant edge.