"Well, one can hardly blame her...." This sentence trailed off into inaudibility as Harry turned to give his attention to some one else coming up with a question at the moment. Perhaps Miss Elliston did not even hear the beginning of the sentence; it is easier to believe that she did not, in view of what followed. Certainly every extenuating circumstance is needed, on both sides, to help account for the fact that so trivial conversation as that which just took place should have led directly to unpleasantness and indirectly to consequences of a far-reaching kind. It is easier to comprehend, also, if one remembers that Miss Elliston's thoughts when she was left alone by Harry occupying the position of the trombone, remained on, or at any rate quite near, the point at which the conversation broke off, whereas Harry's had flown far from it. So that when, after an interval of a few minutes, Harry's voice again became articulate to her in the single isolated sentence "given her something to say to her old frump of a mother," addressed to the leader of the orchestra, she at first misconstrued his meaning, interpreting his remark not as he meant it, as referring to her stage mother, Mrs. Peachum, but as referring to quieting the puritanical scruples of her own mother, Mrs. Elliston.
The whole affair hung on an incredibly slender thread of coincidence. If Harry had not unconsciously raised his voice somewhat on that one phrase, if he had not happened to use the word "frump," which might conceivably be twisted into applying to either mother, Miss Elliston would never, even for a moment, have been tempted to attribute the baser meaning to his words. As it was the thought did not remain in her head above five seconds, at the outside; she knew Harry better than to believe seriously that he would say such a thing. But by another unfortunate chance Harry happened to be looking her way during those few seconds, and marked her angry flush and the instantaneous glance of indignation and contempt that she shot toward him. He saw her flush die down and her expression soften again, but the natural quickness that had made him realize her state of mind was not long in giving him an explanation of it.
All might yet have been well had not Harry's sense of humor played him false. As usually happened at these evening rehearsals he escorted Miss Elliston home, her house lying on the way to his. In the course of the walk an unhappy impulse made him refer to the little incident, which had struck him as merely humorous.
"By the way," said he "your sense of filial duty almost led you astray to-night, didn't it?"
"Filial duty?"
"Yes—you thought I was making remarks about your mother to-night when I was talking to Cosgrove about Mrs. Peachum and that song...."
"Oh, that—!" Any one who knew her might have expected Miss Elliston to laugh and continue with something like "Yes, I know; wasn't it ridiculous of me?" since she really knew perfectly well that Harry was talking about Mrs. Peachum. That she did not is due partly to the fatigue incident to rehearsing a leading part in an opera in addition to teaching school from nine till one every day, and partly to the eternally inexplicable depths of the feminine nature. She had been very much ashamed of herself for having even for a moment done that injustice to Harry, and she wished intensely that the affair might be buried in the deepest oblivion. Harry's opening of the subject, consequently, seemed to her tactless and a trifle brutal. She had done penance all the evening for her after all very trifling mistake; why should he insist upon humiliating her this way?... Obviously she was very tired!
"Yes," went on Harry, "don't expect me to believe that you were angry on behalf of Mrs. Peachum!"
"No. I suppose I had a right to be angry on behalf of my own mother, if I wanted to, though."
"But I wasn't talking about your mother—you know that!"