aren. You remember the
Baron. A sad, stately man he was, as cultured and intellectual as could
be and going in the best society. Mercedes had found pretty quick that
there wasn't much fun in being married to a yellow-haired boy who lived
on the money she made and wasn't a mite in society. And the Baron was
just crazy over her in his dignified, reverential way. Poor fellow!"
said Mrs. Talcott pausing in a retrospect over this vanished figure,
"Poor fellow! I guess he came to rue the day he ever set eyes on her.
Well, Mercedes made out to him how terrible her life was and how she was
tied to a dissipated, worthless man who lived on her and was unfaithful
to her. And it's true that Baldwin Tanner behaved as he shouldn't; but
he was a weak creature and she'd disillusionized him so and made him so
miserable that he just got reckless. And he'd never asked any more than
to live in a garret with her and adore her, and paint his lanky people
and eat bread and cheese; he told me so, poor boy; he just used to lay
his head down on my lap and cry like a baby sometimes. But Mercedes made
it out that she was a victim and he was a serpent; and she believed it,
too; that's the power of her; she's just determined to be in the right
always. So at last she made it all out. She couldn't divorce Baldwin,
being a Catholic; but she made it out that she wasn't really married to
him. It appears he didn't get baptized by his folks; they hadn't
believed in baptizing; they were free-thinkers. And the Baron got his
powerful friends to help and they all set to work at the Pope, and they
got him to fix it up, and Mercedes's marriage was annulled and she was
free to marry again. That's what was in her mind in sending for me, you
see; she'd quarrelled with her folks and she wanted a steady respectable
person who knew all about her to stand by her and chaperon her while she
was getting rid of Baldwin. Mercedes has always been pretty careful
about her reputation; she's hardly ever taken any risks.

"Well, she was free and she married the Baron, and poor Baldwin got a
nice young English girl to marry him, and she reformed him, and they're
alive and happy to this day, and I guess he paints pretty poor pictures.
And it makes Mercedes awful mad to hear about how happy they are; she
has a sort of idea, I imagine, that Baldwin didn't have any right to get
married again. I've always had a good deal of satisfaction over
Baldwin," said Mrs. Talcott. "It's queer to