r, the speaker
was getting the bit in her teeth, and earth would know very soon. Dr.
Conrad was conscious at this moment of the sensation which had once
made Sally speak of his mamma as an Octopus. She threw out a tentacle.

"And, of course, Mrs. Julius Bradshaw's story may be nothing but idle
talk. I am the last person to give credit to mere irresponsible
gossip. Let us hope it is ill founded."

Whereupon her son, who knew another tentacle would come and entangle
him if he slipped clear from this one, surrendered at discretion. What
_was_ Mrs. Julius Bradshaw's story? A most uncandid way of putting it,
for the fact was he had heard it all from Sally in the strictest
confidence. So the insincerity was compulsory, in a sense.

The Octopus, who was by this time anchored in her knitting-chair
and awaiting her mixture--two tablespoonfuls after every meal--closed
her eyes to pursue the subject, but warmed to the chace visibly.

"Are you going to tell me, my dear Conrad, that you do _not_ know
that it has been said--I vouch for nothing, remember--that Miss
Nightingale's mother was divorced from her father twenty years ago
in India?"

"I don't think it's any concern of yours or mine." But having said
this, he would have liked to recall it and substitute something else.
It was brusque, and he was not sure that it was a fair way of stating
the case, especially as this matter had been freely discussed between
them in the days of their first acquaintance with Sally and her
mother. Dr. Conrad felt mean for renegading from his apparent
admission at that time that the divorce was an affair they might
properly speculate about. Mrs. Vereker knew well that her son would
be hard on himself for the slightest unfairness, and forthwith climbed
up to a pinnacle of flawless rectitude, for his confusion.

"My dear, it is absolutely _none_. Am I saying that it is? People's
past lives are no affair of ours. Am I saying that they are?"

"Well, no!"

"Very well, then, my dear, listen to what I do say, and do not
misrepresent me. What I say is this--(Are you sure Perkins has mixed
this medicine the same as the last? The taste's different)--Now
listen! What I say is, and I can repeat it any number of times, that
it is useless to expect sensitiveness on such points under such
circumstances. I am certain that your father, or your great-uncle,
Dr. Everett Gayler, would not have hesitated to endorse my opinion
that on the broad question of whe