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We had even acrimoniously hinted that the millionaires' daughters were seeking notoriety rather than a relief for civil disabilities by this undignified tramp across New Jersey and Maryland. But to Miss Fraenkel we said nothing of this. Even if we had been averse to Miss Fraenkel having a vote, we would have said nothing.
"Well," I said, "you said Miss Fraenkel had tried them and found them guilty, Mac." "What I meant was, Miss Fraenkel had formed her own opinion of the business." "Yes," she said, "I have." "Now we shall hear something," chirped Bill. "Listen," said Miss Fraenkel. "It's very likely an assumed name." It was our turn to look bewildered. "Yes?" said Bill. "What then?"
We had reached the cheese and celery before Bill contributed a piece of news that impressed us in different ways. "I 'phoned Miss Fraenkel this morning," she said, "and asked her to come up after dinner this evening. She said she'd be tickled to death to come." I said nothing at first, and Mac, annexing an unusually large piece of cheese, grinned.
No better illustration could probably be given of the danger of drawing conclusions when you are not in possession of all the facts. One thing was entirely overlooked in all this speculation until about twenty years ago, that pneumonia was due not simply to the depressing effects of cold, but to a specific germ, the pneumococcus of Fraenkel.
It was slow progress from 118th to 18th Street and from there to a real flat in Lexington Avenue, where it so happened that Miss Fraenkel had, and still has, a married sister. Bill and the married sister became warm friends, discovering in each other a common dislike of pink, and it was she who introduced us formally; though in a casual way Miss Fraenkel and I met occasionally on the stairs.
Her husband turned upon us with a smile of satisfaction. "If we're all going to be honest," he remarked, "we all ought to know as much as each other, eh? Well then, tell us about the correspondence, old man. What do you know?" "Miss Fraenkel ..." I began, and Bill breathed, "I knew it!"
"I think," I said, gently, "you are making a mistake. Consider! Miss Fraenkel is no doubt interested in her neighbours, like any other woman. But you make a big mistake if you imagine that ordinary people, people who are not professionally concerned with human nature, are accustomed to draw conclusions and observe character, as as we do, for example.
Miss Fraenkel remained faithful to her mission throughout the meal, and enlisted our sympathy by recounting the struggles of Mrs. Wederslen to capture the league for her own social purposes. It was an old story, this of the ambition of Mrs. Wederslen. Mrs. Wederslen seemed to think that in a community of artists the art-critic's wife is queen. Mrs.
"Say," he said, "suppose we get Miss Fraenkel's opinion of the chap with the hooked nose. She's American; she'll be sure to have an opinion." "No doubt," I conceded. "We shall see whether we have not taken too much for granted. There's only one thing, and that is, are we not exposing Miss Fraenkel to temptation by exciting her curiosity yet more about her neighbour?" "Oh, bunk!" said Mac.
For had we not gone out that night to visit Miss Fraenkel and with her see the New Year safely born, we should have had no vivid memory of that terrible descent, nor understood how Fate had woven our neighbours' destinies, and how inexplicably she can drive to ruin at the moment of victory.
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