not. I'll tell her in a minute what a respectable person thinks of
her goings-on. More than that, I shall complain to Mr. Rennert. 'Mr.
Rennert,' I'll say, 'either she leaves or me. Choose as you will. The
reputation of your hotel--'" she spluttered and paused.

"Proof," Miss Skillern pronounced judicially; "proof. We know, but
that's not proof."

"He has a wife," Mrs. Randall replied in a shrill whisper; "a wife
who is an invalid. Mrs. Zoock, she who had St. Vitus' dance and left
yesterday, heard it direct. George A. Jasper, woolen mills in
Frankford, Pennsylvania. Mr. Rennert would thank me for that
information."

They had forgotten Linda. She stood rigid and cold--they were
blaming her mother for going out in a rolling chair with Mr. Jasper
because he was married. But her mother didn't know that; probably
Mr. Jasper had not given it a thought. She was at the point of
making this clear, when it seemed to her that it might be better to
say that her mother knew everything there was about Mr. Jasper's
wife; she could even add that they were all friends.

Linda would have to tell her mother the second she came in, and
then, of course, she'd stop going with Mr. Jasper. Men, she thought
in the elder's phrase, were too beastly for words.

"After all," Mrs. Randall was addressing her again, "you needn't say
anything at all to your mama. It might make her so cross that she'd
spank you."