First impressions are not always permanent, as Jennie was soon to discover. The neighborhood had accepted her perhaps a little too hastily, and now rumors began to fly about. A Mrs. Sommerville, calling on Mrs. Craig, one of Jennie’s near neighbors, intimated that she knew who Lester was—“oh, yes, indeed. You know, my dear,” she went on, “his reputation is just a little—” she raised her eyebrows and her hand at the same time.
“You don’t say!” commented her friend curiously. “He looks like such a staid, conservative person.”
“Oh, no doubt, in a way, he is,” went on Mrs. Sommerville. “His family is of the very best. There was some young woman he went with—so my husband tells me. I don’t know whether this is the one or not, but she was introduced as a Miss Gorwood, or some such name as that, when they were living together as husband and wife on the North Side.”
“Tst! Tst! Tst!” clicked Mrs. Craig with her tongue at this astonishing news. “You don’t tell me! Come to think of it, it must be the same woman. Her father’s name is Gerhardt.”
“Gerhardt!” exclaimed Mrs. Sommerville. “Yes, that’s the name. It seems to me that there was some earlier scandal in connection with her—at least there was a child. Whether he married her afterward or not, I don’t know. Anyhow, I understand his family will not have anything to do with her.”
“How very interesting!” exclaimed Mrs. Craig. “And to think he should have married her afterward, if he really did. I’m sure you can’t tell with whom you’re coming in contact these days, can you?”
“It’s so true. Life does get badly mixed at times. She appears to be a charming woman.”
“Delightful!” exclaimed Mrs. Craig. “Quite naive. I was really taken with her.”
“Well, it may be,” went on her guest, “that this isn’t the same woman after all. I may be mistaken.”
“Oh, I hardly think so. Gerhardt! She told me they had been living on the North Side.”