o. Go on."

"The nuns, who, after all, knew their California, thought they smelt a
rat, for the woman was extraordinarily handsome, magnificently dressed;
the Mother Superior--who is a woman of the world, all right--read the
newspapers, and had never seen the name of Dubois--and knew that only
stars drew fat salaries. She asked some sharp questions about the father,
and the woman replied readily that he was a scientific man, an inventor,
and--well, it was natural, was it not? they did not get on very well. He
disliked the stage, but she had been on it before she married him, and
dullness and want of money for her own needs and her child's had driven
her back. He had lived in Los Angeles for a time, but had recently gone
East to take a high-salaried position. It was with his consent that she
asked the nuns to take the child--possibly for two or three years. When
she was a famous actress and could leave the road, she would keep house
for her husband in New York, and make a home for the child.

"The Mother Superior, by this time, had made up her mind that the father
wished the child removed from the mother's influence, and although she
took the whole yarn with a bag of salt, the child was the most beautiful
she had ever seen, and obviously healthy and amiable. Moreover, the
convent was to receive two hundred dollars a month--"

"What?"

"Exactly. Can you beat it? The Mother Superior made up her mind it was
her duty to bring up the little thing in the way it should go. As the
woman was leaving she said something about a possible reconciliation with
her family, who lived in France; they had not written her since she went
on the stage. They were of a respectability!--of the old tradition! But
if they came round she might take the child to them, if her husband would
consent. She should like it to be brought up in France--

"Here the Mother Superior interrupted her sharply. Was her husband a
Frenchman? And she answered, no doubt before she thought, for these
people always forget something, that no, he was an American--her family,
also, detested Americans. The Mother Superior once more interrupted her
glibness. How, then, did he have a French name? Oh, but that was her
stage name--she always went by it and had given it without thinking. What
was her husband's name? After a second's hesitation she stupidly give the
name Smith. I can see the mouth of the Mother Superior as it set in a
grim line. 'Very well,' said she, 'the chi