Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the city room.djvu/194

 Miss Herrick responded promptly.

"Not for the world," said she. "This is an easy problem. I saw the deadly purpose in your eye toward the end of the evening and stopped it with an awful glare. That was emphatically the time for one of your 'brilliant flashes of silence.'" She helped Miss Imboden into her coat and tucked in her sleeves with sisterly care.

"A certain amount of precaution is an excellent thing, little girl," she said seriously. "Theoretically you were all right. Practically you were wrong, as you now know, in this case. The rest of us felt that, because we 're older and more experienced than you. Perhaps we read human nature a little better."

A sudden thought struck her, and notwithstanding Miss Imboden's flushed cheeks she added, teasingly:— "After all, the great question of the evening is still unsettled: To what extent can a good woman help an erring sister without being injured in the eyes of others? Think it over, Virginia dear, and let us know!"

Miss Imboden has not solved her problem yet.