name thereafter, to those "in the know".
Pennycuick blood and pride notwithstanding, she seemed to lose her own
sustaining self-respect when she lost the respect of the man she
loved--when he showed her with such barbarous and uncompromising
candour the essential difference between a mistress and a wife. Of
course, she "got over" that grievous affair, which, for a time, broke
whatever heart she had to break. Her freedom and her money, her youth
and her beauty, were still hers, and she made the most of them; and
that most was a great deal. In her cosmopolitan sets she was a popular
and distinguished figure. From one fashionably rowdy Continental resort
to another she carried her rich jewels and trappings, and her personal
magnetism, and sat down for the season to a campaign of social
stratagem and sentimental intrigue--to the indulgence of her unbridled
appetite for excitement and the admiration of men. And ever at the end,
when it was time to move on to another BIJOU apartment in another
place, there was a fresh scalp at her girdle, and nothing, as it were,
to show for it, until at last her vanity was tempted with a title, and
she married an Italian count, who, if all tales were true, paid the
debt that his sex owed her with heavy interest. But those tales did not
reach the ears of the sisters at home. To them--with the object of
suitably impressing them--she wrote an occasional note, of which half
the words were titles of nobility; and the humbler relatives accepted
the fact of her unapproachable elevation above them. The Breens made
easy jokes upon the subject; Mr Goldsworthy's jealousy of her was
overcome by his pride in the connection. "We had a letter from my
sister-in-law, the Countess, the other day," he would amiably remark,
and proceed to repeat and amplify the fashionable intelligence
contained therein, instead of taking away her character as he had been
used to do. Deborah was the only sister with whom she can be said to
have corresponded, and Deborah had a shrewd suspicion that all was not
gold that glittered in Francie's lot. Deborah had the best means of
knowing, being herself a world-traveller, and what is called a society
woman, as well known in the resorts of such as Frances herself. But
although they seemed to run so closely, and so much upon the same
lines, there was as wide a gap of social difference and non-intimacy
between them as between any two of their family. And Deb was not one to
think evil of