g come the
rich and rot and ruin it!"

Mildred and her mother were listening in astonishment. Said the mother:

"I'd be ashamed to confess myself such a hypocrite."

"And I, madam, would be ashamed to be such a hypocrite without taking a
bath of confession afterward," retorted Presbury.

"At least you might have waited until Mildred wasn't in hearing,"
snapped she.

"I shall marry him if I can," said Mildred.

"And blissfully happy you'll be," said Presbury. "Women, ladies--true
ladies, like you and your mother--have no sensibilities. All you ask
is luxury. If Bill Siddall were a thousand times worse than he is, his
money would buy him almost any refined, delicate lady anywhere in
Christendom."

Mrs. Presbury laughed angrily. "YOU, talking like this--you of all
men. Is there anything YOU wouldn't stoop to for money?"

"Do you think I laid myself open to that charge by marrying you?" said
Presbury, made cheerful despite his savage indigestion by the
opportunity for effective insult she had given him and he had promptly
seized. "I am far too gallant to agree with you. But I'm also too
gallant to contradict a lady. By the way, you must be careful in
dealing with Siddall. Rich people like to be fawned on, but not to be
slobbered on. You went entirely too far."

Mrs. Presbury, whom indigestion had rendered stupid, could think of no
reply. So she burst into tears. "And my own daughter sitting silent
while that man insults her mother!" she sobbed.

Mildred sat stiff and cold.

"It'll be a week before I recover from that dinner," Presbury went on
sourly. "What a dinner! What a villainous mess! These vulgar, showy
rich! That champagne! He said it cost him six dollars a bottle, and
no doubt it did. I doubt if it ever saw France. The dealers rarely
waste genuine wine on such cattle. The wine-cellars of fine houses the
world through are the laughing-stock of connoisseurs--like their
picture-galleries and their other attempts to make money do the work of
taste. I forgot to put my pills in my bag. I'll have to hunt up an
all-night drug-store. I'd not dare go to bed without taking an
antidote for that poison."

But Presbury had not been altogether improvident. He had hoped great
things of Bill Siddall's wine-cellar--this despite an almost unbroken
series of bitter disillusionments and disappointments in experience
with those who had the wealth to buy, if they had had the taste to
select, the fine wines h