e punished severely for what he said to me. To be outraged and
insulted this way before my own child!"

"Mother," questioned Berenice, fixing her with those cool, blue eyes,
"why don't you tell me all about Louisville? You and I shouldn't have
things between us. Maybe I can help you."

All at once Mrs. Carter, realizing that her daughter was no longer a
child nor a mere social butterfly, but a woman superior, cool,
sympathetic, with intuitions much deeper than her own, sank into a
heavily flowered wing-chair behind her, and, seeking a small
pocket-handkerchief with one hand, placed the other over her eyes and
began to cry.

"I was so driven, Bevy, I didn't know which way to turn. Colonel
Gillis suggested it. I wanted to keep you and Rolfe in school and give
you a chance. It isn't true--anything that horrible man said. It
wasn't anything like what he suggested. Colonel Gillis and several
others wanted me to rent them bachelor quarters, and that's the way it
all came about. It wasn't my fault; I couldn't help myself, Bevy."

"And what about Mr. Cowperwood?" inquired Berenice curiously. She had
begun of late to think a great deal about Cowperwood. He was so cool,
deep, dynamic, in a way resourceful, like herself.

"There's nothing about him," replied Mrs. Carter, looking up
defensively. Of all her men friends she best liked Cowperwood. He had
never advised her to evil ways or used her house as a convenience to
himself alone. "He never did anything but help me out. He advised me
to give up my house in Louisville and come East and devote myself to
looking after you and Rolfe. He offered to help me until you two
should be able to help yourselves, and so I came. Oh, if I had only
not been so foolish--so afraid of life! But your father and Mr. Carter
just ran through everything."

She heaved a deep, heartfelt sigh.

"Then we really haven't anything at all, have we, mother--property or
anything else?"

Mrs. Carter shook her head, meaning no.

"And the money we have been spending is Mr. Cowperwood's?"

"Yes."

Berenice paused and looked out the window over the wide stretch of park
which it commanded. Framed in it like a picture were a small lake, a
hill of trees, with a Japanese pagoda effect in the foreground. Over
the hill were the yellow towering walls of a great hotel in Central
Park West. In the street below could be heard the jingle of
street-cars. On a road in the park could be seen a movin