"Day before yesterday," she said. "After dinner, when papa had taken Jay to drive, and left me all alone."
"Oh, where were you?"
"I was down on the beach below the cedars. I heard somebody call me softly up on the bank, and I looked up and saw Alphonsine beckoning to me. So I went up, and she took me behind the bushes and talked to me."
There was a long pause.
"Well," said Missy, trying to smooth out her voice as she smoothed out the creases in a piece of work she had in her hand. "Well, what did she say?"
"I don't know," murmured Gabby, getting uneasy, and twisting around on her heels, and getting out of range of her interlocutor's eyes. "I don't know—all sorts of things."
"Oh, I suppose she talked about me, and asked whether your papa came to our house often, and all that."
Gabby gave her a doubtful, sharp look.
"Ye—es," she said.
"And you told her about that, and then she said—?"