"You oughtn't to be so hard on
her. She's crazy."
"But crazy people are dangerous. A mosquito can kill a king, and a
king has to be careful about mosquitoes. I'm more afraid of people
than I am of insects. If you could only label them--"
"People label themselves. What did Alice Herbert say about me?"
"First, of course, how strange it was that you should care to live in
Scarborough Square, especially as you were a person who held yourself
so aloof from--"
"People like her. I do. What else did she say?"
"That you met all sorts of people, had all sorts to come and see you.
A trained nurse who is with a sick friend of her aunt's told her she'd
heard you let a--let a bad woman come in your house." Kitty's voice
trailed huskily. "She said it would ruin you if things like that got
out. I told her it was a lie--it wasn't so."
"It was so." I held Kitty's eyes, horror-filled and unbelieving. "She
stayed with Mrs. Mundy a week. Yesterday she went away to the
mountains--to die."
For a moment longer Kitty stared at me, and in her face crept deep and
crimson color.
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