"It's really too bad," Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop continued.
"What is too bad?" demanded Vernon. He had grown sulky.
Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop looked at him pityingly.
"Morley," she said in a vast solemn tone that came slowly up from her
great stays, "I can make allowances, of course. I know something of the
nature of man; I will admit that that Greene woman is remarkably
handsome, and of her cleverness there can be no doubt. I don't
altogether blame you."
She paused that Vernon might comprehend to the fullest her marvelous
magnanimity.
"But at the same time it has been hard on poor little Amelia. I saw no
other way than to bring her down. You must go to her at once."
She turned toward Braidwood and Porter, still standing where she had
left them.
"When you have done, I'll see you with reference to this miserable
resolution; but that can wait till we are at the Capitol. This other
matter comes first, of course."
She smiled with a fat sweetness.
"And Morley," she said, "order two carriages for us at ten o'clock. You
may drive to the Capitol with us."
And she went away.
Vernon ordered the carriages, and in turning the whole matter over in
his mind he came to the conclusion that he must deal with these
complications one at a time; Miss Greene, as events now had shaped
themselves, would have to wait until he got over to the State House.