was he gave me
the tip; I guess I've seen enough over here by this time to have worked
it out. They're scandalised all right--they're blue with horror and have
never heard of anything so dreadful. Miss Francie," her visitor roared,
"that ain't good enough for you and me. They know what's in the papers
every day of their lives and they know how it got there. They ain't like
the fellow in the story--who was he?--who couldn't think how the
apples got into the dumplings. They're just grabbing a pretext to break
because--because, well, they don't think you're blue blood. They're
delighted to strike a pretext they can work, and they're all cackling
over the egg it has taken so many hens of 'em to lay. That's MY
diagnosis if you want to know."

"Oh--how can you say such a thing?" Francie returned with a tremor
in her voice that struck her sister. Her eyes met Delia's at the same
moment, and this young woman's heart bounded with the sense that she was
safe. Mr. Flack's power to hustle presumed too far--though Mr. Dosson
had crude notions about the licence of the press she felt, even as an
untutored woman, what a false step he was now taking--and it seemed to
her that Francie, who was not impressed (the particular light in her
eyes now showed it) could be trusted to allow him no benefit.

"What does it matter what he says, my dear?" she interposed. "Do make
him drop the subject--he's talking very wild. I'm going down to see what
poppa means--I never heard of anything so flat!" At the door she paused
a moment to add mutely, by mere facial force: "Now just wipe him out,
mind!" It was the same injunction she had launched at her from afar that
day, a year before, when they all dined at Saint-Germain, and she could
remember how effective it had then been. The next moment she flirted
out.

As soon as she had gone Mr. Flack moved nearer to Francie. "Now look
here, you're not going back on me, are you?"

"Going back on you--what do you mean?"

"Ain't we together in this thing? WHY sure! We're CLOSE together, Miss
Francie!"

"Together--together?" Francie repeated with charming wan but not at all
tender eyes on him.

"Don't you remember what I said to you--just as straight as my course
always is--before we went up there, before our lovely drive? I stated
to you that I felt--that I always feel--my great hearty hungry public
behind me."

"Oh yes, I understood--it was all for you to work it up. I told them so.
I never denied it,"