there all the time. He 's having a regular affair with her. Did you ever know anything to beat men?"
"How do you know?" said Letitia, looking down and picking at the gold arabesques on her dress.
"Mortimer told me last night. He made me swear I would n't tell a living soul. You must remember that, by the way, or I 'll get into trouble. Mortimer saw Colonel Reed in the office the other day, and that red-haired clerk, the one John took in because his mother was crazy or consumptive or something, told Mortimer Colonel Reed came there often, and that John went out to see him at his home somewhere near South Park. Does n't that beat the band? John going calling in South Park on Colonel Reed's daughter, and then pretending to us that he does n't know her! If John knew the man had said anything about it, he 'd kick him down all the stairs in the building, if they reached from here to the ferry."
Letitia was silent. She thought of the conversation on Sunday, and the woman who had been the heroine of the novel. All the sunshine seemed to go out of the afternoon, and the innocent joy she had taken in putting on her beautiful clothes suddenly shriveled up and vanished.
"He might go out there and see Colonel
