Lester came across the page accidentally, and tore it out.
He was stunned and chagrined beyond words.
"To think the damned newspaper would do that to a private citizen who was quietly minding his own business!" he thought.
He went out of the house, the better to conceal his deep inward mortification.
He avoided the more populous parts of the town, particularly the down-town section, and rode far out on Cottage Grove Avenue to the open prairie.
He wondered, as the trolley-car rumbled along, what his friends were thinking—Dodge, and Burnham Moore, and Henry Aldrich, and the others.
This was a smash, indeed.
The best he could do was to put a brave face on it and say nothing, or else wave it off with an indifferent motion of the hand.
One thing was sure—he would prevent further comment.
He returned to the house calmer, his self-poise restored, but he was eager for Monday to come in order that he might get in touch with his lawyer, Mr. Watson.
But when he did see Mr. Watson it was soon agreed between the two men that it would be foolish to take any legal action.
It was the part of wisdom to let the matter drop.
"But I won't stand for anything more," concluded Lester.
"I'll attend to that," said the lawyer, consolingly.
Lester got up.
"It's amazing—this damned country of ours!" he exclaimed.
"A man with a little money hasn't any more privacy than a public monument."
"A man with a little money," said Mr. Watson, "is just like a cat with a bell around its neck.
Every rat knows exactly where it is and what it is doing."
"That's an apt simile," assented Lester, bitterly.
Jennie knew nothing of this newspaper story for several days.
Lester felt that he could not talk it over, and Gerhardt never read the wicked Sunday newspapers.
Finally, one of Jennie's neighborhood friends, less tactful than the others, called her attention to the fact of its appearance by announcing that she had seen it.
Jennie did not understand at first.
"A story about me?" she exclaimed.
"You and Mr. Kane, yes," replied her guest.
"Your love romance."
Jennie colored swiftly.
"Why, I hadn't seen it," she said.
"Are you sure it was about us?"
"Why, of course," laughed Mrs. Stendahl.
"How could I be mistaken?
I have the paper over at the house.
I'll send Marie over with it when I get back.
You look very sweet in your picture."
Jennie winced.
"I wish you would," she said, weakly.
She was wondering where they had secured her picture, what the article said.
Above all, she was dismayed to think of its effect upon Lester.
Had he seen the article?
Why had he not spoken to her about it?
The neighbor's daughter brought over the paper, and Jennie's heart stood still as she glanced at the title-page.
There it all was—uncompromising and direct.
How dreadfully conspicuous the headline—"This Millionaire Fell in Love With This Lady's Maid," which ran between a picture of Lester on the left and Jennie on the right.
There was an additional caption which explained how Lester, son of the famous carriage family of Cincinnati, had sacrificed great social opportunity and distinction to marry his heart's desire.
Below were scattered a number of other pictures—Lester addressing Jennie in the mansion of Mrs. Bracebridge, Lester standing with her before an imposing and conventional-looking parson, Lester driving with her in a handsome victoria, Jennie standing beside the window of an imposing mansion (the fact that it was a mansion being indicated by most sumptuous-looking hangings) and gazing out on a very modest working-man's cottage pictured in the distance.
Jennie felt as though she must die for very shame.
She did not so much mind what it meant to her, but Lester, Lester, how must he feel?
And his family?
Now they would have another club with which to strike him and her.