thought. "That's as far as I'll
go. If she can't read that I'm done for!"

The maid had taken the message upstairs.

"Now I've done it, I've gone too far. I'm done for--oh, I'm done for!
Well, look about you, Ethel, my love--it's the last look you'll ever get
at this room! How dear it is, what taste, what a home. Books,
pictures, a piano of course--and the very air is full of the things that
have been said here after dinner, over coffee and cigarettes, by all the
people you want to know. Not rich nor 'smart' like Newport--just people
with minds and hearts alive to the big things that really count, the
beautiful things! . . . Good-bye, my dears--you're not very kind."

"She'll be down in a moment," said the maid.

"Thank you!" Ethel had wheeled with a start; and again left alone, she
stood without moving. "Well, here you are--you've got your chance! And
how do you feel? Plain panicky! Never mind, that's just what will
catch her attention! Be panicky! Oh, I am--I am!" And her courage
oozed so rapidly that when her hostess came into the room, and with a
smile that was rather strained, said "I am so glad to see you--" the
girl who confronted her only stared, and suddenly shivered a little.
Then she forced a smile and said, "How silly of me to shiver like that."

"Come here by the fire and sit down." Mrs. Crothers' voice was suddenly
kind. "Now tell me how I can help you," she said.

"Thank you. Why, it's simply this. I've had trouble with Joe, my
husband--just lately--in the last few days. And the trouble is so
serious that--it's my whole life--one way or the other. At least
it--certainly feels so! And I have no women friends I can go to.
They're all his--hers, I mean."

"Hers!"

"Yes. My sister's. She is dead--but very much alive at times--through
the friends she left behind her. I've been fighting them all my life,
it seems--ever since I married Joe!"

"Why were you fighting them?" Ethel frowned:

"Because they--well, they were all just fat--in body and soul--the
women, I mean--and the men were just making money for food and things to
keep them so. Do you know what I mean--that kind of New Yorker?"

"I do," said Mrs. Crothers. "Was that the cause of your trouble with
Joe!"

"Partly--yes. You see when I tried to shake them off, they wouldn't be
shaken--they hung on--because Joe was growing rich all of a sudden. Oh,
I got pretty desperate! But then I learned of other friends that Joe
had had here long ago--b