tset that somehow they must
arrange to go on together. The alternative meant a mere pittance of
alimony for her; meant for him social ostracism and the small income
cut in half; meant for both scandal and confusion.

Said she fretfully: "Oh, I suppose we'll get along, somehow. I don't
know anything about those things. I've always been looked after--kept
from contact with the sordid side of life."

"That house you live in," he went on, "does it belong to you?"

She gave him a contemptuous glance. "Of course," said she. "What low
people you must have been used to!"

"I thought perhaps you had rented it for your bunco game," retorted he.
"The furniture, the horses, the motor--all those things--do they belong
to you?"

"I shall leave the room if you insult me," said she.

"Did you include them in the seven thousand dollars?"

"The money is in the bank. It has nothing to do with our house and our
property."

He reflected, presently said: "The horses and carriages must be sold
at once--and all those servants dismissed except perhaps two. We can
live in the house."

She grew purple with rage. "Sell MY carriages! Discharge MY servants!
I'd like to see you try!"

"Who's to pay for keeping up that establishment?" demanded he.

She was silent. She saw what he had in mind.

"If you want to keep that house and live comfortably," he went on,
"you've got to cut expenses to the bone. You see that, don't you?"

"I can't live any way but the way I've been used to all my life,"
wailed she.

He eyed her disgustedly. Was there anything equal to a woman for folly?

"We've got to make the most of what little we have," said he.

"I tell you I don't know anything about those things," repeated she.
"You'll have to look after them. Mildred and I aren't like the women
you've been used to. We are ladies."

Presbury's rage boiled over again at the mention of Mildred. "That
daughter of yours!" he cried. "What's to be done about her? I've got
no money to waste on her."

"You miserable Tammany THING!" exclaimed she. "Don't you dare SPEAK of
my daughter except in the most respectful way."

And once more she opened out upon him, wreaking upon him all her wrath
against fate, all the pent-up fury of two years--fury which had been
denied such fury's usual and natural expression in denunciations of the
dead bread-winner. The generous and ever-kind Henry Gower could not be
to blame for her wretched plight; and, of course,