ked your cousin, Mrs. Dumont."

"I hope so," replied Pauline. "I'm sure we all ought to be
shocked--and should be, if it weren't you who are trying to do the
shocking. She'll soon get used to you."

"Then it was a jest?" said Olivia to Langdon.

"A jest?" He looked serious. "Not at all, my dear Mrs. Pierson. Every
word I said was true, and worse. They----"

"Stop your nonsense, Mowbray," interrupted Mrs. Herron, who appreciated
that Olivia was an "outsider." "Certainly he was jesting, Mrs.
Pierson. Mr. Langdon pretends to have eccentric ideas--one of them is
that everybody with brains should be put under the feet of the
numskulls; another is that anybody who has anything should be locked up
and his property given to those who have nothing."

"Splendid!" exclaimed Langdon. And he took out a gold cigarette case
and lighted a large, expensive-looking cigarette with a match from a
gold safe. "Go on, dear lady! Herron should get you to write our
prospectus when we're ready to unload on the public. The dear public!
How it does yearn for a share in any piratical enterprise that flies
the snowy flag of respectability." He rose. "Who'll play English
billiards?"

"All right," said Mrs. Herron, rising.

"And I, too," said Mrs. Fanshaw.

"Give me one of your cigarettes, Mowbray," said Mrs. Herron. "I left my
case in my room."

Pauline, answering Olivia's expression, said as soon as the three had
disappeared:

"Why not? Is it any worse for a woman than for a man?"

"I don't know why not," replied Olivia. "There must be another reason
than because I don't do it, and didn't think ladies did. But that's
the only reason I can give just now."

"What do you think of Langdon?" asked Pauline.

"I guess my sense of humor's defective. I don't like the sort of jest
he seems to excel in."

"I fancy it wasn't altogether a jest," said Pauline. "I don't inquire
into those matters any more. I used to, but--the more I saw, the worse
it was. Tricks and traps and squeezes and--oh, business is all vulgar
and low. It's necessary, I suppose, but it's repulsive to me." She
paused, then added carelessly, yet with a certain deliberateness, "I
never meddle with Mr. Dumont, nor he with me."

Olivia wished to protest against Pauline's view of business. But--how
could she without seeming to attack, indeed, without attacking, her
cousin's husband?

Dumont brought Fanshaw up in his automobile, Herron remaining at the
of