She doesn't want to come back to a child's nussery." To all of which her mother nodded her head, keeping it going like a toy mandarin long after the subject of discussion had been changed.
Little by little the scandal spread: by innuendoes; by the wise shakings of empty heads; by nods and winks; by the piecing out of incomplete tattle.

For the spread of gossip is like the spread of fire: First a smouldering heat--some friction of ill-feeling, perhaps, over a secret sin that cannot be smothered, try as we may; next a hot, blistering tongue of flame creeping stealthily; then a burst of scorching candor and the roar that ends in ruin.

Sometimes the victim is saved by a dash of honest water--the outspoken word of some brave friend.

More often those who should stamp out the burning brand stand idly by until the final collapse and then warm themselves at the blaze.
Here in Warehold it began with some whispered talk: Bart Holt had disappeared; there was a woman in the case somewhere; Bart's exile had not been entirely caused by his love of cards and drink.

Reference was also made to the fact that Jane had gone abroad but a short time AFTER Bart's disappearance, and that knowing how fond she was of him, and how she had tried to reform him, the probability was that she had met him in Paris.