The twins nodded, their jaws locked with caramel.
"He doesn't come very often," Gladys managed to get out indistinctly. "I wish he would."
"I suppose his business keeps him away," suggested Mrs. Pendleton.
Gladys glanced up from a consideration of the respective attractions of a chocolate cream and caramel.
"He says it is incompatibility of humor," she repeated glibly. Gladys was more than half American.
"Of humor!" Mrs. Pendleton's face broke up into ripples of delight. She flew at once to Mrs. Howard's private sitting room, arriving all out of breath and exploded her bomb immediately.
"My dear, did you know that Mrs. Hilary is not a widow?"
"Not a widow!" repeated Mrs. Howard with dazed eyes.
"I met her husband right now at the door. He was telling the children good-by. He isn't any more dead than I am."
"Not dead!" repeated Mrs. Howard, collapsing upon the nearest chair with all the prostration a news bearer's heart could desire. "And she was always talking about what he used to do and used to think and used to say. Why—why I can't believe it."