riumphs.
The incense of adulation did not make as sweet an odor in her
nostrils as one might have supposed. Anne Champneys was oddly
lacking in personal vanity, and she retained her sense of values,
she was able to see things in their just proportions. That she had
created a sensation didn't turn her red head. But she had a feeling
that she had, in a sense, kept her word to Chadwick Champneys,
discharged part of her debt. This was what he had wished her to
accomplish. Very well, she had accomplished it. She was glad. But
she sensed a certain hollowness under it all. Sometimes, alone in
her room, she would stand and look long and earnestly at the red
Indian face of Fra Girolamo Savonarola, brought from Florence and
now hanging on her wall. That room had changed. It was plain and
simple, almost austere; the "honest monk" who had died in the fire,
and the wooden crucifix under him, seemed to dominate it. That
treasure of a maid whom Marcia had secured for her, secretly sniffed
at Mrs. Champneys's bed-chamber. She couldn't understand it. It
wasn't in keeping with the rest of the house. For, it was a
brilliant house, as the home of an exceedingly fashionable, wealthy,
and handsome woman should be.

Anne bore the name of Champneys like a conquering banner. What had
happened on a smaller scale in Florence, happened on a large scale
here at home. Something of the Champneys story had crept out,--the
early marriage, which had kept all the wealth in the family; the
departure of the bridegroom to become an artist, and the fact that
he had really become a noted one. The halo of romance encircled her
head. She was considered beautiful and clever, and the glamour of
much money added to the impression she created; but she was also
considered cold, inaccessible, and perhaps, as the Italian had said,
without a heart. She became, as Marcia had laughingly predicted, a
legend in her own lifetime.

Jason Vandervelde watched her speculatively. He adored Anne, and he
hoped she wasn't going to be spoiled by all the pother made over
her. And he watched with a growing concern Berkeley Hayden's quiet,
persistent, deliberate pursuit of her. Jason wasn't under any
illusions about the Champneys marriage, but he had, as his wife
said, an almost superstitious respect for Chadwick Champneys, and
that marriage had been the old man's darling plan. It was upon that
he had builded, and Vandervelde hated to see that plan brought to
naught. Anne wouldn't