At least, it was so interpreted across the street, where Mrs. Dodge gave utterance to a sound vocal but incoherent, and Mrs. Cromwell said “Oh, _my_!” in a husky whisper. The French car glided by them, passing them as they openly stared at it, or indeed glared at it, and a moment later it was far down the street, leaving them to turn their glares upon each other. “That settles it,” Mrs. Dodge gasped. “It ought to have been a gondola.” “A gondola?” “A Doge’s wife carrying on with a fool poet or something;—she always has that air to me. What a comedy!” Mrs. Cromwell shook her head; her expression was of grief and shock. “It’s tragedy, Lydia.” “Just as you choose to look at it. The practical point of view is that it’s going to happen to Amelia, and pretty soon, too! Some day before long that man’s going to walk in and tell her she’s got to step aside and let him marry somebody else. Doesn’t what we just saw prove it? That woman did it deliberately in our faces, and she knows we’re friends of his wife’s. She deliberately showed us she didn’t care what we saw. And as for him——” “He didn’t see us, I think,” Mrs. Cromwell murmured. “_See_ us? He wouldn’t have seen Amelia herself if she’d been with us—and she might have been! That’s why I say she ought to know.” “Oh, I don’t think I’d like to——” “_Somebody_ ought to,” Mrs. Dodge said, firmly. “Somebody ought to tell her, and right away, at that.” “Oh, but——” “Oughtn’t she to be given the chance to prepare herself for what’s coming to her?” Mrs. Dodge asked, testily. “She’s made that man think he’s Napoleon, and so she’s going to get what Napoleon’s wife got. I think she ought to be warned at once, and a true friend would see to it.” In genuine distress, Mrs. Cromwell shrank from the idea. “Oh, but I could never——” “Somebody’s _got_ to,” Mrs. Dodge insisted, implacably. “If you won’t, then somebody else.” “Oh, but you—you wouldn’t take such a responsibility, would you? You—you _wouldn’t_, would you, Lydia?” The severe matron, Lydia Dodge, thus flutteringly questioned, looked more severe than ever. “I shouldn’t care to take such a burden on my shoulders,” she said. “Looking after my own burdens is quite enough for me, and it’s time I was on my way to them.” She moved in departure, but when she had gone a little way, spoke over her shoulder, “_Some_body’s got to, though! Good-bye.” Mrs. Cromwell, murmuring a response, entered her own domain and walked slowly up the wide brick path; then halted, turned irresolutely, and glanced to where her friend marched northward upon the pavement. To Mrs. Cromwell the outlines of Mrs. Dodge, thus firmly moving on, expressed something formidable and imminent. “But, Lydia——” the hesitant lady said, impulsively, though she knew that Lydia was already too distant to hear her. Mrs. Cromwell took an uncertain step or two, as if to follow and remonstrate, but paused, turned again, and went slowly into her house.