"She's a terrible gossip, if you mean that. I told Paul the other day that to let Mrs. Billop into a bit of scandal was like dropping a soda cracker into a bowl of hot milk; she fairly soaks it up."
"I suppose we're all terrible gossips, but—well, really she scares me."
"Oh, I don't listen to her unless I have to." Pamela was looking superior, but she was really experiencing a keen feeling of alarm; what in the world was Lottie leading up to?
Mrs. Prynne sipped her tea daintily, still looking out of the window. A big hat of violet velvet furnished a charming frame for her delicately tinted face. "I really think she says things—she shouldn't."
"It's usually Sidney who tattles. Paul says he was brought up on a trundle-bed and catnip tea and he can't offer any mental resistance. Yet we all have him about, we warm the serpent in our bosoms!"
"But it wasn't Sidney who said it."
Pamela's endurance was exhausted. "Good heavens, Lottie, who said what?"
This cryptic but human inquiry made Mrs. Prynne laugh a little hysterically.
"Hasn't she told you? The things she says about Eva Astry, I mean."
Pamela sat still for a moment, gazing intently into her little Dutch cups, and the softly shaded light of the candelabrum glowed on her light brown hair, the curve of her white brow, and her rather wide but pleasant mouth. She was aware that a pause is always significant, but she felt the cruel necessity of being very guarded. She did not know how much Lottie had heard and she dared not risk increasing her knowledge. The situation was so delicate that while Pamela enjoyed its intricacies, like all social diplomatists, she was deeply alarmed lest she betray too deep a knowledge.