The wretched gossipers had wounded her in the keenest way.

She was hurt, angry, nonplussed.

To think that Cowperwood by his variability should expose her to such gossip as this! One day not so long after her conversation with Mrs.Platow, Aileen happened to be standing outside the door of her own boudoir, the landing of which commanded the lower hall, and there overheard two of her servants discussing the Cowperwood menage in particular and Chicago life in general.

One was a tall, angular girl of perhaps twenty-seven or eight, a chambermaid, the other a short, stout woman of forty who held the position of assistant housekeeper.

They were pretending to dust, though gossip conducted in a whisper was the matter for which they were foregathered.