There was a great deal of talk. Somehow
such talk cheapened his sacrifice and hers.
Not that she believed it, or much of it. She knew how little such
gossip actually meant. Practically every woman she knew, herself
included, had at one time or another laid herself open to such
invidious comment. They had all been idle, and they sought amusement
in such spurious affairs as this, harmless in the main, but taking
on the appearance of evil. That was part of the game, to appear
worse than one really was. The older the woman, the more eager she
was often in her clutch at the vanishing romance of youth.
Only - it was part of the game, too, to avoid scandal. A fierce
pride for Clayton's name sent the color to her face.
On the evening after Delight's visit, she had promised to speak at
a recruiting station far down-town in a crowded tenement district,
and tired as she was, she took a bus and went down at seven o'clock.
She was uneasy and nervous. She had not spoken in the evening
before, and in all her sheltered life she had never seen the milling
of a night crowd in a slum district.
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