"I know," murmured her mother, intensely, as one who has suffered much
from just that demeanor of stories....

The falling sun shot a ray into the white-and-cherry bedroom; peeped at
the lovely girl sitting stiffly on the bed's edge, turned thick
mote-beams upon the lady of deceptive delicacy who stood, with flowing
brown hair and still more flowing robe de chambre, silent upon her peak
in Darien. The leather-shod clocklet, which always accompanied these two
upon their travels could now be heard ticking. Carlisle looked at her
mother, and there were both apprehensiveness and dependence in her look.
She herself was the cleverer of the two women, but very comforting it
was to her to feel this rock-like support behind her now.

Into Mrs. Heth's gray eyes had sprung a kind of glitter, the look of a
commanding general about to make an exterminative rush upon the enemy.
Hugo Canning to be maliciously informed that _her_ daughter was, had
been, or ever should be engaged to Jack Dalhousie! Not while she
retained her love of justice, and the power of locomotion in her limbs.

"Oho!" said she. "Well, I'll fix _that_ ... I'll stamp upon their
miserable lies ..."

The room telephone rang loudly, hastening decisions. Carlisle winced
visibly. In her mood of acute sensitiveness, she was for not answering
at all. But Mrs. Heth, the fighting man now in full possession of her,
tossed off the receiver with a brigadier air.

"Well?" demanded she sharply; and then, continuing: "Yes. Oh, yes!
Howdedo, Willie ... You've arrived, have you? (It's Willie Kerr, Cally.)