Mrs. Peniston, on whom she had looked in a day or two after the dinner,
laid down her crochet-work and turned abruptly from her oblique survey of
Fifth Avenue.

"Gus Trenor?--Lily and Gus Trenor?" she said, growing so suddenly pale
that her visitor was almost alarmed.

"Oh, cousin Julia . . . of course I don't mean . . ."

"I don't know what you DO mean," said Mrs. Peniston, with a frightened
quiver in her small fretful voice. "Such things were never heard of in my
day. And my own niece! I'm not sure I understand you. Do people say he's
in love with her?"

Mrs. Peniston's horror was genuine. Though she boasted an unequalled
familiarity with the secret chronicles of society, she had the innocence
of the school-girl who regards wickedness as a part of "history," and to
whom it never occurs that the scandals she reads of in lesson-hours may
be repeating themselves in the next street. Mrs. Peniston had kept her
imagination shrouded, like the drawing-room furniture. She knew, of
course, that society was "very much changed," and that many women her
mother would have thought "peculiar" were now in a position to be
critical about their visiting-lists; she had discussed the perils of
divorce with her rector, and had felt thankful at times that Lily was
still unmarried; but the idea that any scandal could attach to a young
girl's name, above all that it could be lightly coupled with that of a
married man, was so new to her that she was as much aghast as if she had
been accused of leaving her carpets down all summer, or of violating any
of the other cardinal laws of housekeeping.

Miss Stepney, when her first fright had subsided, began to feel the
superiority that greater breadth of mind confers. It was really pitiable
to be as ignorant of the world as Mrs. Peniston! She smiled at the
latter's question. "People always say unpleasant things--and certainly
they're a great deal together. A friend of mine met them the other
afternoon in the Park-quite late, after the lamps were lit. It's a pity
Lily makes herself so conspicuous."

"CONSPICUOUS!" gasped Mrs. Peniston. She bent forward, lowering her voice
to mitigate the horror. "What sort of things do they say? That he means
to get a divorce and marry her?"

Grace Stepney laughed outright. "Dear me, no! He would hardly do that.
It--it's a flirtation--nothing more."

"A flirtation? Between my niece and a married man? Do you mean to tell me
that, with Lily's looks and advan