"Haven't you been reading the papers?" Miss Earle rallied him, with a
coquettish smile. "But I don't suppose Boston bothers with such sordid
things," she added, her thin-lipped mouth tightening. "Miss Pendleton
was all cut up about it, because Mrs. Selim, or Juanita Leigh, as she
was known on Broadway, had directed our Easter play the last two years,
and the reporters simply hounded us the first two days after she was
murdered out in Hamilton, where a number of our richest girls have come
from----"
"By Jove!" Dundee exclaimed. "Was the Selim woman connected with this
school, really?... I only read the headlines--never pay much attention
to murders in the papers--"
"I wish," Miss Earle interrupted tartly, fresh tears reddening her eyes,
"that people wouldn't persist in referring to her as 'that Selim
woman'.... When I think how sweet and friendly she was, how--how
_kind_!" and to Dundee's surprise she choked on tears before she could
go on: "Of course I know it's dreadful for the school, and I ought not
to talk about it, when you've come to see about putting your sister into
the school, but Nita was _my friend_, and it simply makes me _wild_----"
"You admired and liked her very much?" Dundee asked, forgetting his role
for the moment.
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