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 house-keeping. 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 advantages, she could find no better use for her time than to waste it on a fat stupid man almost old enough to be her father?” This argument had such a convincing ring that it gave Mrs. Peniston sufficient reassurance to pick up her work, while she waited for Grace Stepney to rally her scattered forces. But Miss Stepney was on the spot in an instant. “That’s the worst of it—people say she isn’t wasting her time! Every one knows, as you say, that Lily is too handsome and—and charming—to devote herself to a man like Gus Trenor unless—”