"How was he stupider?"
"He thought," said Esmé with sorrowful solemnity, "that I was just as bad as I seemed. He ought to have known me better."
The older woman bent and laid a cheek against the sunny hair. "And weren't you just as bad as you seemed?"
"Worse! Anyway, I'm afraid so," said the confessional voice, rather muffled in tone. "But I—I just got led into it. Oh, Jinny, I'm not awfully happy."
Mrs. Willard's head went up and she cocked an attentive ear, like an expectant robin. "Some one outside," said she. "I'll be back in a moment. You sit there and think it over."
Esmé curled back on the divan. A minute later she heard the curtains part at the end of the dim room, and glanced up with a smile, to face, not Jeannette Willard, but Hal Surtaine.
"You 'phoned for me, Lady Jinny," he began: and then, with a start, "Esmé! I—I didn't expect to find you here."
"Nor I to see you," she said, with a calmness that belied her beating heart. "Sit down, please. I have something to tell you. It's what I really came to the office to say."
"Yes?"
"About Kathleen Pierce."