han half of Mrs. Tresslyn's income for the next two years,
the ingenuity of a firm of expensive lawyers, the skill of nearly a dozen
private detectives, and no end of sleepless nights to untie the loathsome
knot, and even then George's wife had a shade the better of them in that
she reserved the right to call herself Mrs. Tresslyn, quite permanently
disgracing his family although she was no longer a part of it.

The young woman was employed as a demonstrator for a new brand of mustard
when George came into her life. The courtship was brief, for she was a
pretty girl and virtuous. She couldn't see why there should be anything
wrong in getting married, and therefore was very much surprised, and not a
little chagrined, to find out almost immediately after the ceremony that
she had committed a heinous and unpardonable sin. She shrank for a while
under the lashings, and then, like a beast driven to cover, showed her
teeth.

If marriage was not sanctuary, she would know the reason why. With a
single unimposing lawyer and not the remotest suggestion of a detective to
reinforce her position, she took her stand against the unhappy George and
his mother, and so successful were her efforts to make divorce difficult
that she came out of chambers with thirty thousand dollars in cash, an
aristocratic name, and a valuable claim to theatrical distinction.

All this transpired less than two years prior to the events which were to
culminate in the marriage of George's only sister to the Honourable
Templeton Thorpe of Washington Square. Needless to say, George was now
looked upon in the small family as a liability. He was a never-present
help in time of trouble. The worst thing about him was his obstinate
regard for the young woman who still bore his name but was no longer his
wife. At twenty-four he looked upon himself as a man who had nothing to
live for. He spent most of his time gnashing his teeth because the pretty
little divorcee was receiving the attentions of young gentlemen in his own
set, without the slightest hint of opposition on the part of their
parents, while he was obliged to look on from afar off.

It appears that parents do not object to young women of insufficient
lineage provided the said young women keep at a safe distance from the
marriage altar.

It is interesting to note in this connection, however, that little Mrs.
George Tresslyn was a model of propriety despite her sprightly
explorations of a world that had