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THE BREATH OF SCANDAL

dodgers, any amount lower and less worth while than—well people who lived in Evanston or Muskegon and the old-fashioned parts we know. Then I came to."

"To what, Gregg?"

"That they're working out things down there—especially in relations between men and women—on a little better and sounder basis, after all, than in most other places. Don't bother about the bright lights down there, Marjorie; they're all right in general."

"You mean the people down there are right?"

"In general."

"You don't mean Mrs. Russell's right, I hope."

"In more ways than she's wrong. Now wait a minute, Marjorie. You've seen that your father has other qualities besides the one he's weak in. Mrs. Russell's got other qualities, too. She——"

"I want to know nothing about her!"

"You have to know about her," Gregg said quietly. "For you're not through with Mrs. Russell; she's only begun to do things to you which she'll keep on doing to you until you understand her. You said you used to believe the best thing you could do was to become a wife in the way your mother had; that meant, you thought your mother was right. Do you think so now?"

Marjorie gasped. "Why, what wrong's she done, Gregg?"

"I didn't say she'd done wrong; but without doing wrong, you can be wrong, Marjorie; and it certainly looks as if she's been wrong in at least some of the things in which Mrs. Russell's been right."

"What?"

"Well, for one, Mrs. Russell works. That flat down