Father won't dare to tell her the truth, no more than he will the neighbors.

He'll hush it up, you bet; and when we get this thing fixed you'll go and get your divorce, you know, and we'll be married privately on the square." He looked so vague, so immature, yet so fatuously self-confident, that the woman extended her hand with a laugh and tapped him on the back as she might have patted a dog.

Then she disappeared to follow Zuleika in the kitchen.
When the two women returned together they were evidently on the best of terms.

So much so that the man, with the easy reaction of a shallow nature, became sanguine and exalted, even to an ostentatious exhibition of those New York graces on which the paternal Hays had set such store.
He complacently explained the methods by which he had deceived Dr.
Dawson; how he had himself written a letter from his father commanding him to return to take his brother's place, and how he had shown it to the Doctor and been three months in San Francisco looking for work and assisting Lottie at the theatre, until a conviction of the righteousness of his cause, perhaps combined with the fact that they were also short of money and she had no engagement, impelled him to his present heroic step.

All of which Zuleika listened to with childish interest, but superior appreciation of his companion.