ulgarity of
congratulations--publicity of my private affairs. I've always said
that when one marries a second time the decent thing to do is to marry
first and tell afterward."

"But they guess it, you know."

"That is quite different." It was Madame Zattiany who spoke now and
her tones were deliberate and final. "Quite a different thing from
being congratulated, and tormented by newspapers." She dismissed the
subject. "I shall be free two weeks from today. What do you think of
that?" Her voice was both gay and tender. "Judge Trent will see at
once about engaging my stateroom. Don't tell me that that play of
yours will prevent you from following shortly after."

"Not a bit of it. We shall only be gone two months, and even if
Hogarth succeeds in placing it with his manager as he expects, it might
be several months before rehearsals."

"Then it all fits in quite charmingly. You are coming to dinner
tonight?"

"Well, rather."

"Mind you come early. I have many things to tell you."

"It'll not be for that I'll come early."

Mary smiled and hung up the receiver. She would have to let him return
to New York for a time--possibly. But herself, she would go on to
Vienna. No doubt about that.

She returned to her letters. Those that required answers she placed in
a separate heap with a pencilled note on the back, for she was neat and
methodical; she even slit the envelopes with a paper-knife that was
always at hand for the purpose, and the envelopes were dropped at once
into the waste basket.

The contents for the most part were expected, and related to her work
in Vienna, the disposition of moneys she had sent over, and the usual
clamoring for more. But when she had read halfway through a long
letter from Baroness Tauersperg, in whose capable hands she had left
the most important of her charities, she involuntarily stiffened and
sat forward a little.

Several pages of her friend's letters were always devoted to business,
the rest to gossip. In return Mary enlivened her own letters with many
of her American adventures, although she had made no mention of
Clavering.

"I need not ask if you remember Hohenhauer," continued Frau von
Tauersperg, "although, I suppose, like the rest of us, you saw nothing
of him after the war. He was, as you know, not in bad standing with
the new Government, like the reactionary nobles, as he had always been
a liberal in politics, and had a good record as a generous a