Lavinia was determined to put Calvin Stone definitely and permanently
from her thought. He had been amply punished for his monstrous
treatment of her. The incident was closed, and at last she could have
peace. And then something came to divert all her thinking into a
channel that must have been present in the dark valley of her being all
the while--unrecognized, because the need for it had been so hazily
remote. A story--one of Larimore’s foolish stories. She seldom listened
to them; but this one she could not escape. Eileen had gone home with
Hal Marksley and had met his sister. It was Wednesday, and the outcome
of the Stone imbroglio was still locked in her heart, the telegram
having been burned in the kitchen range, Sunday morning, while Drusilla
was on the second floor, doing up the bedrooms.
After dinner the Trench family had gravitated, one by one, to Mrs.
Ascott’s summer house. David was there, laughing boyishly at something
Eileen was telling. What were they talking about? Lavinia’s sharp
ears caught a sentence now and then. It was not her wont to be out of
things, the things that concerned her family. Her tenant seldom invited
her--specifically. But then she never invited Mrs. Ascott, either.
Going to the pantry, she filled a plate with raisin muffins, from the
afternoon’s baking. Eileen would approach that shrine, armed with a
sensational story; but her mother carried breakfast rolls.