"Oh, come now, Ned Stillman, don't be a
fool! You know as well as I do that I'm hanging on to my own reputation
by my finger-nails. I'm not taking any chances. As to whether it is so
... well, if I were to tell the committee everything I know it wouldn't
help her cause any. I could wreck her reputation like that," she snapped
her fingers, "with one solitary fact. If she hasn't wrecked it already
with her senseless chatter.... Only last week her aunt, Mrs.
Ffinch-Brown, said to me: 'So you're hiring my niece! I must say that is
handsome of you!' You were sitting talking to Claire and she looked
deliberately at you when she said it. Remember how I warned you, last
December. I told you then that the secret of a woman's meal-ticket was
never hidden very long."
During this speech Mrs. Condor's voice had dropped from its original
tone of petty rancor to one of petulant self-justification. Stillman
knew at once that her ill-temper had caught her off-guard and she was
already trying to crawl slowly back into his favor. She had meant, no
doubt, to soften her news over a glass or two of chilled white wine
which she had counted on sipping during the noon hour. She might even
then have gone farther and decided to cast her fortunes with Stillman
and Claire if she had seen that her advantage lay in that direction. He
was not sure but that she still had some such notion in her mind.
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