"Oh, I hardly think so.
Gerhardt!
She told me they had been living on the North Side."
"Then I'm sure it's the same person.
How curious that you should speak of her!"
"It is, indeed," went on Mrs. Craig, who was speculating as to what her attitude toward Jennie should be in the future.
Other rumors came from other sources.
There were people who had seen Jennie and Lester out driving on the North Side, who had been introduced to her as Miss Gerhardt, who knew what the Kane family thought.
Of course her present position, the handsome house, the wealth of Lester, the beauty of Vesta—all these things helped to soften the situation.
She was apparently too circumspect, too much the good wife and mother, too really nice to be angry with; but she had a past, and that had to be taken into consideration.
An opening bolt of the coming storm fell upon Jennie one day when Vesta, returning from school, suddenly asked:
"Mamma, who was my papa?"
"His name was Stover, dear," replied her mother, struck at once by the thought that there might have been some criticism—that some one must have been saying something.
"Why do you ask?"
"Where was I born?" continued Vesta, ignoring the last inquiry, and interested in clearing up her own identity.
"In Columbus, Ohio, pet.
Why?"
"Anita Ballinger said I didn't have any papa, and that you weren't ever married when you had me.
She said I wasn't a really, truly girl at all—just a nobody.
She made me so mad I slapped her."
Jennie's face grew rigid. She sat staring straight before her. Mrs. Ballinger had called, and Jennie had thought her peculiarly gracious and helpful in her offer of assistance, and now her little daughter had said this to Vesta.
Where did the child hear it?
"You mustn't pay any attention to her, dearie," said Jennie at last.
"She doesn't know.
Your papa was Mr. Stover, and you were born in Columbus.
You mustn't fight other little girls.
Of course they say nasty things when they fight—sometimes things they don't really mean.
Just let her alone and don't go near her any more. Then she won't say anything to you."
It was a lame explanation, but it satisfied Vesta for the time being.
"I'll slap her if she tries to slap me," she persisted.
"You mustn't go near her, pet, do you hear?
Then she can't try to slap you," returned her mother.
"Just go about your studies, and don't mind her. She can't quarrel with you if you don't let her."
Vesta went away leaving Jennie brooding over her words.
The neighbors were talking.
Her history was becoming common gossip.
How had they found out.
It is one thing to nurse a single thrust, another to have the wound opened from time to time by additional stabs.
One day Jennie, having gone to call on Mrs. Hanson Field, who was her immediate neighbor, met a Mrs. Williston Baker, who was there taking tea.
Mrs. Baker knew of the Kanes, of Jennie's history on the North Side, and of the attitude of the Kane family.
She was a thin, vigorous, intellectual woman, somewhat on the order of Mrs. Bracebridge, and very careful of her social connections.
She had always considered Mrs. Field a woman of the same rigid circumspectness of attitude, and when she found Jennie calling there she was outwardly calm but inwardly irritated.
"This is Mrs. Kane, Mrs. Baker," said Mrs. Field, introducing her guests with a smiling countenance.
Mrs. Baker looked at Jennie ominously.
"Mrs. Lester Kane?" she inquired.
"Yes," replied Mrs. Fields.
"Indeed," she went on freezingly.
"I've heard a great deal about Mrs.—" accenting the word "Mrs.—Lester Kane."
She turned to Mrs. Field, ignoring Jennie completely, and started an intimate conversation in which Jennie could have no possible share.
Jennie stood helplessly by, unable to formulate a thought which would be suitable to so trying a situation.