ings. They mock all that is noble. Their talk is so coarse, so
low and degraded. They have no culture. They worship money. They don't
know what miserable failures they all are. And Mrs. Hawley-Crowles--"

The Beaubien's jaw set. "The social cormorant!" she muttered.

"--she will not let me speak of God in her house. She told me to keep
my views to myself and never voice them to her friends. And she says I
must marry either a millionaire or a foreign noble."

"Humph! And become a snobbish expatriate! Marry a decadent count, and
then shake the dust of this democratic country from your feet forever!
Go to London or Paris or Vienna, and wear tiaras and coronets, and
speak of disgraceful, boorish America in hushed whispers! The
empty-headed fool! She forgets that the tarnished name she bears was
dragged up out of the ruck of the impecunious by me when I received
Jim Crowles into my house! And that I gave him what little gloss he
was able to take on!"

"Mother dear--I would leave them--only, they need love, oh, so much!"

The Beaubien strained her to her bosom. "They need you, dearie; they
little realize how they need you! I, myself, did not know until you
came to me. There, I didn't mean to let those tears get away from
me." She laughed softly as Carmen looked up anxiously into her face.
"Now come," she went on brightly, "we must plan for the Charity
Ball."

A look of pain swept over the girl's face. The Beaubien bent and
kissed her. "Wait, dearie," she repeated. "You will not leave society
voluntarily. Keep your light burning. They can not extinguish it. They
will light their own lamps at yours--or they will thrust you from
their doors. And then," she muttered, as her teeth snapped together,
"you will come to me."

Close on the heels of the opera season followed the Charity Ball, the
Horse Show, and the Fashion Show in rapid succession, with numberless
receptions, formal parties, and nondescript social junketings
interspersed. During these fleeting hours of splash and glitter Mrs.
Hawley-Crowles trod the air with the sang-froid and exhilaration of an
expert aviator. Backed by the Beaubien millions, and with the
wonderful South American girl always at her right hand, the
worldly ambitious woman swept everything before her, cut a social
swath far wider than the glowering Mrs. Ames had ever attempted, and
marched straight to the goal of social leadership, almost without
interference. She had apparently achieved other s