"You are from Weir, I think, in Delaware, Mrs. Waldeaux?"
he asked. "I must have seen the name of the town with
yours on the list of passengers, for the story of a woman
who once lived there has been haunting me all day. I
have not seen nor thought of her for years, and I could
not account for my sudden remembrance of her."

"Who was she?" asked George, trying to save his mother
from Perry, who threatened to be a bore.

"Her name was Pauline Felix. You have heard her story,
Mrs. Waldeaux?"

"Yes" said Frances coldly. "I have heard her story. Can
you find my shawl, George?"

But Perry was conscious of no rebuff, and turned
cheerfully to George. "It was one of those dramas of
real life, too unlikely to put into a novel. She was
the daughter of a poor clergyman in Weir, a devout, good
man, I believe. She had marvellous beauty and a devilish
disposition. She ran away, lived a wild life in Paris,
and became the mistress of a Russian Grand Duke. Her
death----"

He could not have told why he stopped. Mrs. Waldeaux
still watched him, attentive, but the sympathetic smile
had frozen into icy civility. She had the old-fashioned
modesty of her generation. What right had this young man
to speak of "mistresses" to her? Clara's girls within