Mrs. Wilbur looked at her scornfully, while Jennings seemed to receive infinite amusement from the situation.
“And you must swear and say nasty things about your family and friends. I met an English girl at Vivian’s the other day, who said she was dining with some people in London, and the daughter of the house remarked at the table before her father and mother,—‘Barr’—that’s the girl’s name—‘Barr, you must come next week when papa and mamma are in the country. We can have some talk then and not such a stupid time.’”
Jennings went away in a gale of laughter, and Miss Parker subsided into silence. Mrs. Wilbur was more hurt by her outbreak than she cared to admit. She realized, moreover, that some recognition was due her friend for her constant devotion. She remarked at last, magnanimously,—
“I think we must go north before long. I will ask Thornton Jennings to join us later, and I am sure you will be glad to see Walter.”
“Thank you,” Miss Parker replied with sweet coolness. “Please don’t urge them—you know I think it’s the men’s business to do the urging.”
“I have fallen pretty low, n’est ce pas, Molly?”
“I didn’t say so.”
“But I have; I couldn’t go much lower, it seems to me at times.”
“Have you made yourself happy?” Molly inquired serenely.
Mrs. Wilbur did not care to answer. Molly’s incipient jealousy hardly deserved attention. Her fears were groundless, for Jennings was merely watching the play out, and assisting the action in obtrusive ways. He had told Mrs. Wilbur that his cousin Mrs. Stevans had been in Florence earlier in the winter and that she and Erard were quite chummy. “Erard’s buying her a carload of stuff.” She inferred that Mrs. Stevans was the present deity who made Erard’s course easy, and that Erard was even better informed about her own affairs than she herself. Yet Erard had never alluded to what he had learned from Mrs. Stevans.