This fortunate lead was enough.  Madame Carter launched forth superbly upon a description of the usual Carter weddings, the ceremony, the state.  In perhaps twenty minutes she was blandly patronizing Harriet, giving her encouraging little taps with her eyeglasses, warning her of mistakes that Isabelle had made with Richard.  Harriet knew that before three days were over her terrible mother-in-law would be telling the world just how wise, under the trying circumstances, the whole thing was, and just how clearly she had foreseen it.  She was still listening respectfully, if a trifle confusedly, when Ward bounded from the house, and gave her an effusive embrace.

“Hello, Mamma!” Ward said.  Harriet laughed, as she pushed away the filial arm.  Hardly knowing what she said or did she made her way to the house, and up to her own room.

But here, in Nina’s room, were Nina and Mrs. Tabor, and from their eyes, as she came in, she knew that they knew.  Nina got up, and came forward with a sort of sulky graciousness.

“I hope you’ll be very happy, Miss Harriet—­I suppose I oughtn’t to call you Miss Harriet any more,” Nina said, with an effort to smile that Harriet thought quite ghastly.  She gave Harriet one of her big hands, and hesitated over a kiss.  But they did not kiss each other.  Ida Tabor watched them with the half-closed eyes of a cat.

“Confess you took my breath away,” she said, frankly, “because it doesn’t seem the sort of thing that Dick Carter does!  Always knew he idolized Isabelle, poor girl, and never dreamed he’d put any one in her place!  Of course, Dick’s a rich man, and he’s the dearest fellow in the world, at that, but knowing, as I do know—­ for I’ve known him since we were kiddies—­exactly what a firebrand Dick always has been-mad as a hatter when he was in love, and consequently this talk of a sensible arrangement—­”

She had a quick, vivacious way of speaking, this pretty little angry and disappointed woman, that often carried an offensive very successfully.  As she spoke, in an innocent voice, she glanced in and out of the magazine she had caught up, and was apparently unconscious of Harriet’s blazing cheeks and darkening eyes.  But now Harriet interrupted her.

“I don’t quite see the point, Mrs. Tabor,” Harriet said, bravely and deliberately, “you speak of Mr. Carter’s being a rich man, and of his love for his wife, and his having been a fiery young man.  What has that to do with me?  I was here in his house as his daughter’s companion—­

“As far as being a companion to me was concerned,” Nina interpolated, rapidly, in an airy undertone, and with a toss of her head.  But Harriet suppressed her with a glance.

“—­that position I could not keep,” she pursued, “but for Ward’s sake and Nina’s there had to be some social life.  My birth,” said Harriet, steadily, “is quite the equal of theirs; I was well able to fill that place.  Mr. Carter took the step that made it possible.  That’s all!”