t. You can rouse any woman's
curiosity, and no one has more than Mrs. Oglethorpe. That would be the
wedge. You'd meet her and then you could give her a dinner and invite
me."

"All right. I'll try it. Something must happen soon. My arteries
won't stand the strain."

V

"Madam is not at home, ma'am."

"Is she not? Then I'll wait for her."

Mrs. Oglethorpe swept by the butler and he had the sensation of chaff
scattering before a strong wind. In truth Mrs. Oglethorpe was an
impressive figure and quite two inches taller than himself. He could
only stare at her in helpless awe, the more so as he had recognized her
at once. Leadership might be extinct, but Mrs. Oglethorpe was still a
power in New York Society, with her terrible outspokenness, her
uncompromising standards, her sardonic humor, her great wealth, and her
eagle eye for subterfuge. How could a mere servant hope to oppose that
formidable will when his betters trembled at her nod?

Mrs. Oglethorpe had made her usual careful toilet. Her full long dress
of heavy-pile black velvet, almost covered with a sable cape, swept the
floor; changing skirts meant nothing to her. Like all women of the old
regime in New York, she wore her hair dressed very high and it was
surmounted by a small black hat covered with feathers, ruthlessly
exposing her large square face with its small snapping black eyes and
prominent nose. A high-boned collar of net supported what was left of
her throat. She wore no jewels, as she clung to the rigorous law of
her youth which had tabued the vulgar display of anything but pearls in
the daytime. As she was too old and yellow for pearls she compromised
on jet earrings and necklace. She carried a cane.

Mr. Dinwiddie to his surprise had found no difficulty in persuading her
to investigate the mysteries of the Ogden mansion, for she had leapt at
once to the conclusion that the friend of her youth was in some way
menaced by this presumptuous stranger of the fantastic resemblance.
There had been a time when, while indignantly repudiating the stories
so prevalent for many years after Mary Ogden's marriage to Count
Zattiany, she had secretly believed and condoned them; not only because
she had loved her devotedly and known something of her heavy
disillusionment, but because the wild secret life the exalted Countess
Zattiany was believed to be leading fed her own suppressed longings for
romance and adventure. With the passage of