ople talk about climbers and butters-in, but
where would anybody be in this town if nobody had ever butted in? It's
all rot, this aping the caste rules of established aristocracies; a
decent fellow ought to be encouraged. Anyway, I'm going to propose, him
for the Stuyvesant and the Proscenium. Why not?"

"I see. And now you propose to bring him to my house?"

"If you'll let me. I asked Jack and he seemed to think it might be all
right if you cared to ask him to play--"

"I won't!" cried Alixe, revolted. "I will not turn my drawing-rooms into
a clearing-house for every money-laden social derelict in town! I've had
enough of that; I've endured the accumulated wreckage too long!--weird
treasure-craft full of steel and oil and coal and wheat and Heaven knows
what!--I won't do it, Gerald; I'm sick of it all--sick! sick!"

The sudden, flushed outburst stunned the boy. Bewildered, he stared
round-eyed at the excited young matron who was growing more incensed and
more careless of what she exposed every second:

"I will not make a public gambling-hell out of my own house!" she
repeated, dark eyes very bright and cheeks afire; "I will not continue
to stand sponsor for a lot of queer people simply because they don't
care what they lose in Mrs. Ruthven's house! You babble to me of limits,
Gerald; this is the limit! Do you--or does anybody else suppose that I
don't know what is being said about us?--that play is too high in our
house?--that we are not too difficile in our choice of intimates as long
as they can stand the pace!"

"I--I never believed that," insisted the boy, miserable to see the tears
flash in her eyes and her mouth quiver.

"You may as well believe it for it's true!" she said, exasperated.

"T-true!--Mrs. Ruthven!"

"Yes, true, Gerald! I--I don't care whether you know it; I don't care,
as long as you stay away. I'm sick of it all, I tell you. Do you think I
was educated for this?--for the wife of a chevalier of industry--"

"M-Mrs. Ruthven!" he gasped; but she was absolutely reckless now--and
beneath it all, perhaps, lay a certainty of the boy's honour. She knew
he was to be trusted--was the safest receptacle for wrath so long
repressed. She let prudence go with a parting and vindictive slap, and
opened her heart to the astounded boy. The tempest lasted a few seconds;
then she ended as abruptly as she began.

To him she had always been what a pretty young matron usually is to a
well-bred but hare-brained