f her face until the recital was
ended. The effect on Miss Lucilla, as they sat side by side on a sofa,
was slightly disconcerting, so that she came to her conclusion lamely.

"Of course, my dear, I don't know his side of the story, or what he may
have to say in self-defence. I'm only telling you what I've heard, and
just as I heard it."

"I dare say it's quite right."

The brevity and suggested cynicism of this reply produced in Miss
Lucilla a little shock.

"Oh! Then, you think--?"

"There would be nothing surprising in it. It's the sort of thing that's
always happening in Paris. It's one of the peculiarities of that society
that you can never believe half the evil you hear of any one--not even
if it's told you by the man himself. I might go so far as to say that,
when it's told you by himself you're least of all inclined to credit
it."

"But how dreadful!"

"Things are dreadful or not, according to the degree in which you're
used to them. I've grown up in that atmosphere, and so I can endure it.
In fact, any other atmosphere seems to me to lack some of the necessary
ingredients of air; just as to some people--to Napoleon, for instance--a
woman who isn't rouged isn't wholly dressed."

"I know that's only your way of talking, dear. Oh, you can't shock
_me_."

"At any rate, the way of talking shows you what I mean. I can quite
understand how Monsieur de Bienville might have said that of Mrs.
Eveleth."

Lucilla's look of pain induced Miss Grimston promptly to qualify her
statement.

"I said I could understand it; I didn't say I respected it. It's only
what's been said of hundreds of thousands of women in Paris by hundreds
of thousands of men, and in the place where they've said it it's taken
with the traditional grain of salt. If all had gone as it was going at
the time--if the Eveleths hadn't lost their money--if Mr. Eveleth hadn't
shot himself--if Mrs. Eveleth had kept her place in French society--the
story wouldn't have done her any harm. People would have shrugged their
shoulders at it, and forgotten it. It's the transferring of the scene
here, among you, that makes it grave. All your ideas are so different
that what's bad becomes worse, by being carried out of its milieu.
Monsieur de Bienville must be made to understand that, and repair the
wrong."

"You seem to think there's no question but that--there _is_ a wrong?"

"Oh, I suppose there isn't. There are so many cases of the kind. Mrs.
Eveleth i