"
"I cannot ask you to do that; there are reasons--I will bring Sylvia to
you later, when her mother has gone," he answered hastily, resolving that
he would do anything to shield her self-respect from the possible shock
of meeting that other mother.
"Horace, you forget yourself, and your father too," she said almost
sternly. "I am country bred, but still I know the world's ways. Your
father's wife will go first to greet her who will be yours; you need not
fear for me," and he sat silent.
That next afternoon, when Horace's first and last love met, they looked
into each other's hearts and saw the same image there, while Mrs. Latham
lay on the lounge in her room, raging within, that again her tongue had
failed her in her own house, and realizing that, woman of the world as
she aimed to be, the "egg woman" had rendered her helpless by mere force
of homely courtesy. Presently she rose, and railing and scolding the
bewildered maid, sent a message to New York to transfer her passage, if
possible, to an earlier steamer.
XIII
GOSSIP AND THE BUG HUNTERS
_July_ 18. It is such a deadly sin to marry outside of the limited set
that is socially registered, that I now understand why many of the
Whirlpoolers are mentally inbred, almost to the vanishing point, so that
they have lost the capacity of thinking for themselves, and must
necessarily follow a leader.
Sylvia Latham's engagement to Horace Bradford has caused a much greater
sensation than her mother's divorce.
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