It was a lame explanation, but it satisfied Vesta for the time being. “I’ll slap her if she tries to slap me,” she persisted.
“You mustn’t go near her, pet, do you hear? Then she can’t try to slap you,” returned her mother. “Just go about your studies, and don’t mind her. She can’t quarrel with you if you don’t let her.”
Vesta went away leaving Jennie brooding over her words. The neighbors were talking. Her history was becoming common gossip. How had they found out.
It is one thing to nurse a single thrust, another to have the wound opened from time to time by additional stabs. One day Jennie, having gone to call on Mrs. Hanson Field, who was her immediate neighbor, met a Mrs. Williston Baker, who was there taking tea. Mrs. Baker knew of the Kanes, of Jennie’s history on the North Side, and of the attitude of the Kane family. She was a thin, vigorous, intellectual woman, somewhat on the order of Mrs. Bracebridge, and very careful of her social connections. She had always considered Mrs. Field a woman of the same rigid circumspectness of attitude, and when she found Jennie calling there she was outwardly calm but inwardly irritated. “This is Mrs. Kane, Mrs. Baker,” said Mrs. Field, introducing her guests with a smiling countenance. Mrs. Baker looked at Jennie ominously.
“Mrs. Lester Kane?” she inquired.
“Yes,” replied Mrs. Fields.
“Indeed,” she went on freezingly. “I’ve heard a great deal about Mrs.—” accenting the word “Mrs.—Lester Kane.”
She turned to Mrs. Field, ignoring Jennie completely, and started an intimate conversation in which Jennie could have no possible share. Jennie stood helplessly by, unable to formulate a thought which would be suitable to so trying a situation. Mrs. Baker soon announced her departure, although she had intended to stay longer. “I can’t remain another minute,” she said; “I promised Mrs. Neil that I would stop in to see her to-day. I’m sure I’ve bored you enough already as it is.”
She walked to the door, not troubling to look at Jennie until she was nearly out of the room. Then she looked in her direction, and gave her a frigid nod.
“We meet such curious people now and again,” she observed finally to her hostess as she swept away.