Gerhardt only stood there, his daughter’s innocence dominating his terror of evil.
“What’s the matter?” she urged softly of her mother.
“Oh, it’s the neighbors,” returned the mother brokenly.
“They’re always ready to talk about something they don’t know anything about.”
“Is it me again?” inquired Jennie, her face flushing faintly.
“You see,” observed Gerhardt, apparently addressing the world in general, “she knows. Now, why didn’t you tell me that he was coming here? The neighbors talk, and I hear nothing about it until to-day. What kind of a way is that, anyhow?”
“Oh,” exclaimed Jennie, out of the purest sympathy for her mother, “what difference does it make?”
“What difference?” cried Gerhardt, still talking in German, although Jennie answered in English. “Is it no difference that men stop me on the street and speak of it? You should be ashamed of yourself to say that. I always thought well of this man, but now, since you don’t tell me about him, and the neighbors talk, I don’t know what to think. Must I get my knowledge of what is going on in my own home from my neighbors?”
Mother and daughter paused. Jennie had already begun to think that their error was serious.
“I didn’t keep anything from you because it was evil,” she said. “Why, he only took me out riding once.”