Usually at the point where the scene shifted from
Ned Stillman's apartments to the Palace Hotel, Mrs. Finnegan's pug nose
was lifted with tentative disapproval, as she inquired:
"How many did you say went down to the Palace?"
"Only four--Mr. Stillman, Claire, Mrs. Condor, and a young fellow named
Edington."
"I suppose _that_ Mrs. Condor was the chaperon. Finnegan knows her well!
She used to hire hacks when Finnegan was in the livery business years
ago. She's a gay one, I can tell you. When only the steam-dummy ran out
to the Cliff House...."
"That's nothing. Everybody who was anybody had dinners at the Cliff
House in those days. I remember how my father...."
"Yes, Mrs. Robson, maybe you do! But I'll bet _you_ never went to such a
place without your husband ... and ... with a _strange_ man."
Mrs. Robson never had, and she would tell Mrs. Finnegan so decidedly.
This always had the effect of switching the subject again and Mrs.
Robson found her desire to know the real details of Mrs. Condor's
questionable gaieties offered up on the altar of class loyalty. For it
never occurred to Mrs. Robson to doubt that her social exile had nothing
to do with the inherent rights of her position.
When everything else in the way of an irritating program failed to rouse
Mrs. Robson's dignified ire, her neighbor fell back upon the fact that
Stillman was a married man.
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