oung, handsome, with a great establishment; perfectly free, with no one
to interfere with you in any way. Now, I--"

"That's just it," broke in Mrs. Lancaster, bitterly. "Free! Free from
what my heart aches for. Free to dress in sables and diamonds and die of
loneliness." She had sat up, and her eyes were glowing and her color
flashing in her cheeks in her energy.

Mrs. Wentworth looked at her with a curious expression in her eyes.

"I want what you have, Louise Caldwell. In that big house with only
ourselves and servants--sometimes I could wish I were dead. I envy every
woman I see on the street with her children. Yes, I am free--too free! I
married for respect, and I have it. But--I want devotion, sympathy. You
have it. You have a husband who adores you, and children to fill your
heart, cherish it." The light in her eyes was almost fierce as she
leaned forward, her hands clasped so tightly that the knuckles showed
white, and a strange look passed for a moment over Mrs.
Wentworth's face.

"You are enough to give one the blue-devils!" she exclaimed, with
impatience. "Let's have a liqueur." She touched a bell, but Mrs.
Lancaster rose.

"No; I will go."

"Oh, yes; just a glass." A servant appeared like an automaton at the
door.

"What will you have, Alice?" But Mrs. Lancaster was obdurate. She
declined the invitation, and declared that she must go, as she was going
to the opera; and the next moment the two ladies were taking leave of
each other with gracious words and the formal manner that obtains in
fashionable society, quite as if they had known each other just
fifteen minutes.

Mrs. Lancaster drove home, leaning very far back in her brougham.

Mrs. Wentworth, too, appeared rather fatigued after her guest departed,
and sat for fifteen minutes with the social column of a newspaper lying
in her lap unscanned.

"I thought she and Ferdy liked each other," she said to herself; "but he
must have told the truth. They cannot have cared for each other. I think
she must have been in love with that man."

CHAPTER XVII

KEITH MEETS NORMAN

The day after Keith's interview with Mr. Creamer he was walking up-town
more slowly than was his wont; for gloom was beginning to take the place
where disappointment had for some time been holding session. His
experience that day had been more than usually disheartening. These
people with all their shrewdness appeared to him to be in their way as
contracted as his mountaine