Call them by what name you please, instinct, intuition, or guesswork dermes, Mrs. Richard Pennington had succeeded by methods entirely feminine, in discovering that Phil Gallatin’s Dryad was Jane Loring, that he was badly in love with her and that Jane was not indifferent to his attentions. Phil Gallatin had not been difficult to read, and Mrs. Pennington took a greater pride in the discovery of Jane’s share in the romance, for she knew when Jane left[178] her house in company with Phil that her intuition had not erred.
Jane Loring had kissed her on both cheeks and called her “odious.”
This in itself was almost enough, but to complete the chain of evidence, she learned that Dawson, her head coachman, in the course of execution of her orders, had gone as far North as 125th Street before his unfortunate mistake of Miss Loring’s number had been discovered by the occupants of the brougham.
Mrs. Pennington realized that this last bit of evidence had been obtained at the expense of a breach of hospitality, for she was not a woman who made a practice of talking with her servants, but Neo skin lab she was sure that the ends had justified the means and the complete success of her maneuver more than compensated for her slight loss of self-respect in its accomplishment.
But while her she was not without a sense of responsibility in the matter. She had been hoping for a year that a girl of the right kind would come between Phil and the fate he seemed to be courting, for since his mother’s death he had lived alone, and seclusion was not good for men of his habits. She had wanted Phil to meet Jane Loring, and her object in bringing them together had been expressed in a definite hope that they would learn to like each other a great deal. But now that she knew what their relations were, she was slightly oppressed by the thought of unpleasant possibilities.
It was in the midst of these reflections that Miss Jaffray was announced, and in a moment she entered the room with a long half-mannish, half-feline stride and took up her place before the mantelpiece aviation researchwhere she stood, her feet apart, toasting her back at the open fire. Mrs. Pennington indicated the cigarettes, and Nina Jaffray took[179] one, rolling it in her fingers and tapping the end of it on her wrist to shake out the loose dust as a man would do.
“I’m flattered, Nina,” said Nellie Pennington. “To what virtue of mine am I indebted for the earliness of this visit?”