“You don’t mean that!” exclaimed the man.
“Of course I do,” cried she. “I know that it’s true! I know that Robbie Walling paid fifteen thousand dollars for some trumpery volumes that they got out! And how do you suppose the paper gets its gossip?”
“I didn’t know,” said Montague. “But I never dreamed—”
“Why,” exclaimed Mrs. Winnie, “their mail is full of blue and gold monogram stationery! I’ve known guests to sit down and write gossip about their hostesses in their own homes. Oh, you’ve no idea of people’s vileness!”
“I had some idea,” said Montague, after a pause.—“That was why I wished to protect you.”
“I don’t wish to be protected!” she cried, vehemently. “I’ll not give them the satisfaction. They wish to make me give you up, and I’ll not do it, for anything they can say!”
Montague sat with knitted brows, gazing into the fire. “When I read that paragraph,” he said slowly. “I could not bear to think of the unhappiness it might cause you. I thought of how much it might disturb your husband—”
“My husband!” echoed Mrs. Winnie.
There was a hard tone in her voice, as she went on. “He will fix it up with them,” she said,—“that’s his way. There will be nothing more published, you can feel sure of that.”
Montague sat in silence. That was not the reply he had expected, and it rather disconcerted him.