suppose?... Ah, yes ... What? _No_, Willie! Not a _line_! You must put
your foot down on that! This is entirely a personal matter and I will
not allow a piece in the paper about it. I won't have it.... Ah. All
right, then. I'll trust that to you. In ten minutes, Willie...."
The capable little general turned from the telephone to find the eyes of
the lieutenant or private fixed fearfully upon her.
"Willie," she explained, hurriedly, "says there's a newspaper reporter
hanging about--think of it!--trying to pick up something scandalous for
his wretched sheet. Willie has promised to attend to _him_. He says he
knows the editor or correspondent or whoever it is, and there won't be
the slightest trouble in shutting him up. There shan't be either. Now to
business."
At her best in action, mamma glided through the door into her own room,
slipping off her robe as she glided. In an amazingly short time she was
back again, breathing hard, and dressed for no-quarter affray.
"You didn't talk downstairs, Cally? No one pumped you as to what had
happened?"
"No, I spoke to no one."
Mrs. Heth wielded hatpins before the mirror, the glitter surviving in
her eyes.
"I am putting on a hat," she threw out, "to give matters a casual air. A
public hotel's a hotbed of gossip. Everything depends on the story's
being started right--on just the right note.... Thank God, I'm here!"
"Lie down," added Mrs. Heth, and Carlisle lay down.
The most exhaustive details of the affair had not, perhaps, been
laboriously collected as yet, but luckily Mrs. Heth was not the sort
that requires a mass of verbose testimony and dull statistics. The right
note awaited her touch six floors below, and time was pressing. Already
her mind had flown well ahead, perceived with precision just what was
required. Willie must be seen, and at least two ladies, of different
sets, great gossips, for preference; and to these she would confide,
with some little just indignation but without excitement, the astounding
truth about the young blackleg who, having boarded and upset her
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