hearing too! She rose when he paused, bowed, and hurried
to them, like a hen fluttering to protect her chicks.

"He was talking to me of a woman," she said excitedly to
Clara, "who is never mentioned by decent people."

"Yes, I heard him," said Miss Vance. "Poor Pauline! Her
career was always a mystery to me. I was at school with
her, and she was the most generous, lovable girl! Yet
she came to a wretched end," turning to her flock, her
tone growing didactic. "One is never safe, you see. One
must always be on guard."

"Oh, my dear!" cried Frances impatiently. "You
surely don't mean to class these girls and me with
Pauline Felix! Come, come!"

"None of us is safe," repeated Clara stiffly. "Somebody
says there is a possible vice in the purest soul, and it
may lie perdu there until old age. But it will break out
some day."

Mrs. Waldeaux looked, laughing, at the eager, blushing
faces around her. "It is not likely to break out in us,
girls, eh! Really, Clara," she said, in a lower tone,
"that seems to me like wasted morality. Women of our
class are in no more danger of temptation to commit great
crimes than they are of finding tigers in their
drawing-rooms. Pauline Felix was born vicious. No woman
could fall as she did, who was not rotten to the core."