How many did you say went down to the Palace?"

"Only four--Mr. Stillman, Claire, Mrs. Condor, and a young fellow named
Edington."

"I suppose _that_ Mrs. Condor was the chaperon. Finnegan knows her well!
She used to hire hacks when Finnegan was in the livery business years
ago. She's a gay one, I can tell you. When only the steam-dummy ran out
to the Cliff House...."

"That's nothing. Everybody who was anybody had dinners at the Cliff
House in those days. I remember how my father...."

"Yes, Mrs. Robson, maybe you do! But I'll bet _you_ never went to such a
place without your husband ... and ... with a _strange_ man."

Mrs. Robson never had, and she would tell Mrs. Finnegan so decidedly.
This always had the effect of switching the subject again and Mrs.
Robson found her desire to know the real details of Mrs. Condor's
questionable gaieties offered up on the altar of class loyalty. For it
never occurred to Mrs. Robson to doubt that her social exile had nothing
to do with the inherent rights of her position.

When everything else in the way of an irritating program failed to rouse
Mrs. Robson's dignified ire, her neighbor fell back upon the fact that
Stillman was a married man. Mrs. Finnegan really worshiped Mrs. Robson
to distraction, but she had a natural combative tendency that was at
odds with even her loyalty.

"Mr. Stillman is a married man," Mrs. Finnegan would insist, doggedly.
"And I don't approve of married men taking an interest in young girls.
Who knows?--he may spoil your daughter's chances."

This statement always had the effect of dividing Mrs. Robson against
herself. She resented Mrs. Finnegan's insinuations concerning Stillman,
because it was not in her nature to be anything but partizan, and at the
same time she was mollified by her neighbor's recognition of the fact
that Claire had such things as chances. She always managed cleverly at
this point by saying, patronizingly:

"Why, how you talk, Mrs. Finnegan! Mr. Stillman is just like an old
friend. Not that we've known _him_ so long ... but the family, you know
... they're old-timers. Everybody knows the Stillmans! Really one
couldn't want a better friend."

Thus did Mrs. Robson take meager and colorless realities and expand them
into things of blossoming promise. She was almost creative in the
artistry she brought to these transmutations. In the end she convinced
_herself_ of their existence and she was quite sure that Mrs. Finnegan
shared