rather have one papa than, in a way of speaking, a different one at
every hotel?"

Linda, completely at a loss for answer, studied Mrs. Randall with
her direct deep blue gaze. Miss Skillern again inclined her plumes.
With the rest of her immobile she was surprisingly like one of those
fat china figures with a nodding head. Linda was assaulted by the
familiar bewildered feeling of not understanding what was said and,
at the same time, passionately resenting it from an inner sensitive
recognition of something wrong.

"How could I have that?" she finally asked.

"How?" repeated Miss Skillern, breathing loudly.

"Yes, how?" Mrs. Randall echoed. "You can ask your mama. You really
can. And you may say that, as a matter of fact, the question came
from us," she included her companion.

"From you," Miss Skillern exactly corrected her.

"Indeed," the other cried heatedly, "from me! I think not. Didn't
you ask? Answer me that, if you please. I heard you with my own ears
say, 'How?' While now, before my face, you try to deny it." It was
plain to Linda that Miss Skillern was totally unmoved by the charge.
She moved her lorgnette up, gazing stolidly at the musical
programme. "From you," she said again, after a little. Mrs. Randall
suddenly regained her equilibrium.

"If the ladies of this hotel are afraid to face that creature I--I--am