repeat what she has seen or heard, more or less accurately.  From gossiping to meddling is but a trifling step.  To back up a bit of gossip, one often meddles.  Mrs. Franklyn-Haldene was naturally a daughter of Eve; she was more than a gossip, she was a prophetess.  She foretold scandal.  She would move Heaven and earth, so the saying goes, to prove her gossip infallible.  And when some prophecy of hers went wrong, she did everything in her power to right it.  To have acquired the reputation of prophesying is one thing, always to fulfil these prophecies is another.  It never occurred to her that she was destroying other people’s peace of mind, that she was constituting herself a Fate, that she was meddling with lives which in no wise crossed or interfered with her own.  She had no real enmity either for Warrington or Mrs. Jack; simply, she had prophesied that Warrington had taken up his residence in Herculaneum in order to be near Katherine Challoner, John Bennington’s wife.  Here was a year nearly gone, and the smoke of the prophecy had evaporated, showing that there had been no fire below.

Neither Warrington nor Mrs. Jack was in her thoughts when she opened the letter, which was signed by McQuade’s familiar appellation.

Dear Girl—­I’ve got them all this trip.  I’ll put Bennington on the rack and wring Warrington’s political neck, the snob, swelling it around among decent people!  What do you think?  Why, Warrington used to run after the Challoner woman before she was married; and I have proof that she went to Warrington’s room one night and never left till morning.  How’s that sound?  They stick up their noses at you, do they?  Wait!  They won’t look so swell when I’m through with them.  If Warrington’s name is even mentioned at the Republican convention, I’ve missed my guess.  I got your bills this morning.  You’d better go light till I’ve settled with these meddlers.  Then we’ll pack up our duds and take that trip to Paris I promised you.

Mac.

Mrs. Franklyn-Haldene shivered.  How horribly vulgar!  She felt polluted for a moment, and half wished she had let the missive lie where it had fallen.  But this sense of disgust wore off directly.  She had been right, then; there was something wrong; it was her duty, her duty to society, to see that this thing went no further.  And that flirtation between Patty and the dramatist must be brought to a sudden halt.  How?  Ah, she would now find the means.  He was merely hoodwinking Patty; it was a trick to be near Mrs. Jack.  She had ignored her, had she?  She had always scorned to listen to the truth about people, had she?  And well she might!  Mrs. Franklyn-Haldene’s lips tightened.  Those friends of hers who had doubted would presently doubt no more.  She hadn’t the slightest idea how McQuade would use his information; she didn’t even care, so long as he used it.  She grew indignant.  The idea of that woman’s posing as she did!  The idea of her dreaming to hold permanently the footing she had gained in society!  It was nothing short of monstrous.  The ever-small voice of conscience spoke, but she refused to listen.  She did not ask herself if what McQuade had in his possession was absolute truth.  Humanity believes most what it most desires to believe.  And aside from all this, it was a triumph, a vindication of her foresight.