"I tell you it's true. You needn't pooh-pooh at me, Antoinette McLane.
I have it on the best authority."
"Old Ben Travers, I suppose!"
"No, it's not Ben Travers, although he'll find it out soon enough. Her
chambermaid knows my cook. She is devoted to Madeleine, evidently, and
cried after she had told it, but--well, I suppose it was too good for
any mere female to keep."
"Servants' gossip," replied Mrs. McLane witheringly. "I should think it
would be beneath your self-respect to listen to it. Fancy gossiping
with one's cook."
"I didn't," replied Mrs. Abbott with dignity. "She told my maid, and if
we didn't listen to our maids' gossip how much would we really know
about what goes on in this town?"
Mrs. McLane, Mrs. Ballinger, Guadalupe Hathaway and Sally Abbott were
sitting in Mrs. Abbott's large and hideous front parlor after luncheon,
and she had tormented them throughout the meal with a promise of
"something that would make their hair stand on end."
She had succeeded beyond her happy expectations. Mrs. McLane's eyes
were flashing. Mrs. Ballinger looked like a proud silver poplar that
had been seared by lightning. Sally burst into tears, and Miss
Hathaway's large cold Spanish blue eyes saw visions of Nina Randolph, a
brilliant creature of the early sixties, whom she had tried to save
from the same fate.
"Be sure the bell boys will find it out," continued Mrs. Abbott
unctuously. "And when it gets to the Union Club--well, no use for us to
try to hush it up."
"As you are trying to do now!"
"You needn't spit fire at me. I feel as badly as you do about it. If
I've told just you four it's only to talk over what can be done."
"I don't believe there's a word of truth in the story. Probably that
wretched servant is down on her for some reason. Madeleine Talbot! Why,
she's the proudest creature that ever lived."
"She might have the bluest blood of the South in her veins," conceded
Mrs. Ballinger handsomely. "I pride myself on my imagination but I
simply cannot _see_ her in such a condition."
"If it's true, it's Masters, of course," said Miss Hathaway. "The only
reason I didn't fall in love with him was because it was no use. But
he's the sort of man--there are not many of them!--who would make a
woman love him to desperation if he loved her himself. And she'd never
forget him."
"I don't believe it," said Mrs. Ballinger coldly. "I never believed
that Madeleine was in love with Langdon Masters. A good woman loves
only her husband."
"Oh, mamma!" wailed Sally. "Madeleine is young, and the doctor's a dear
but he wasn't the sort of a man for her at all. He just attracted her
when she was a girl because he was so different from the men she knew.
But Langdon is exactly suited to her. I guessed it before any of you
did. It worried me dreadfully, but I sympathized--I always admired
Langdon--if he'd looked at me before I fell in love with Hal I believe
I'd have married him--but I wish, oh, how I wish, Madeleine could get a
divorce."
"Sally Ballinger!" Her mother's voice quavered. "This terrible
California! If you had been brought up in Virginia--"
"But I wasn't. And I mean what I say. And--and--it's true about
Madeleine. I went there the other day and she saw me--and--oh, I never
meant to tell it--it's too terrible!"
"So," said Mrs. McLane. "So," She added thoughtfully after a moment.
"It's a curious coincidence. Langdon Masters is drinking himself to
death in New York. Jack Belmont returned the other day--he told Mr.
McLane."
She had been interrupted several times, Madeleine for the moment
forgotten.
"Why didn't Alexander Groome know? He's his cousin and bad enough
himself, heaven knows."
"Oh, poor Langdon! Poor Langdon! I knew he could love a woman like
that--"
"He has remarkable powers of concentration!"
"I'll wager Mr. Abbott heard it himself at the Club, the wretch! He'll
hear from me!"
"Oh, it's too awful," wailed Sally again. "What an end to a romance. It
was quite perfect before--in a way. And now instead of pitying poor
Madeleine and wishing we were her--she--which is it?--we'll all be
despising her!"
"It's loathsome," said Mrs. Ballinger. "I wish I had not heard it. I
prefer to believe that such things do not exist."
"Good heavens, mamma, I've heard that gentlemen in the good old South
were as drunk as lords, oftener than not."
"As lords, yes. Langdon Masters is in no position to emulate his
ancestors. And Madeleine! No one ever heard of a lady in the South
taking to drink from disappointed love or anything else. When life was
too hard for them they went into a beautiful decline and died in the
odor of sanctity."
"They get terribly skinny and yellow in the last stages--"
"Sally!"
"Well, I don't care anything about Langdon Masters," announced Mrs.
Abbott. "He's left here anyway, and like as not we'll never see him
again. This is what I want to know: Can anything be done about
Madeleine Talbot? Of course Howard poured whiskey down her throat until
it got the best of her. But he should know how to cure her. That is if
he knows the worst."
"You may be sure he knows the worst," said Mrs. McLane. "How could he
help it?"
"That maid said she bought it on the sly all the time. Don't you
suppose he'd put a stop to that if he knew it?"
"Well, he will find it out. And I'll not be the one to tell him. One
ordeal of that sort is enough for a lifetime."
"Why not give her a talking to? She has always seemed to defer more to
you than to any one else." Mrs. Abbott made the admission grudgingly.
"I am willing to try, if she will see me. But--if she knows what has
happened to Masters--and ten to one she does--he may have written to
her--I don't believe it will do any good. Alas! Why does youth take
life so tragically? When she is as old as I am she will know that no
man is worth the loss of a night's sleep."
"Yes, but Madeleine isn't old!" cried Sally. "She's young--young--and
she can't live without him. I don't know whether she's weaker or
stronger than Sibyl, but at any rate Sibyl is happy--"
"How do you know?"
"Can't you see it in her face at the theatre? Oh, I don't care! I'll
tell it! Madeleine asked me to lunch to meet her one day last winter
and I went. We had a splendid time. After lunch we sat on the rug
before the fire and popped corn. Oh, you needn't all glare at me as if
I'd committed a crime. It's hard to _be_ hard when you're young, and
Sibyl was my other intimate friend. But that's not the question at
present. I've had an idea. Perhaps I could persuade Madeleine to stay
with me. Now that I know, perhaps she won't mind so much. I only got in
by accident. There's a new man at the desk and he let me go up--"
"Well, what is your idea?" asked Mrs. McLane impatiently. "What could
you do with her if she did visit you--which she probably will not."
"I might be able to cure her. She wouldn't see anything to drink. Hal
has sworn off. There's not a drop in sight, and not only on his account
but because the last butler got drunk and fell in the lake. We'll not
have any company while she's there. And I'd lock her in at night and
never leave her alone in the daytime."
"That is not a bad idea at all," said Mrs. McLane emphatically. "But
don't waste your time trying to persuade her. Go to Howard. Tell him
the truth. He will give her a dose of valerian and take her over in a
hack at night."
"I don't like the idea of Sally coming into contact with such a
dreadful side of life--"
"But if I can save her, mamma?"
"Maria is Alexander Groome's wife and she has no influence over him."
"Oh, Maria! If he were my husband I'd lead him such a dance that he'd
behave himself in self-defence. Maria is too much like you--"
"Sally Ballinger!"
"I only meant that you are an angel, mamma dear. And of course you are
so enchanting and beautiful papa has always toed the mark. But Maria is
good without being any too fascinating--"
"Sally is right," interrupted Mrs. McLane. "I am not sure that her plan
will succeed. But no one has thought of a better. If Madeleine has a
deeper necessity for stupefying her brain than shattered nerves, I
doubt if any one could save her. But at least Sally can try. We'd be
brutes if we left her to drown without throwing her a plank."
"Just what I said," remarked Mrs. Abbott complacently. "Was I not
justified in telling you? And when you get her over there, Sally, and
her mind is quite clear, warn her that while she may do what she
chooses in private, if she elects to die that way, just let her once be
seen in public in a state unbecoming a lady, and that is the end of her
as far as we are concerned."
"Yes," said Mrs. McLane with a sigh. "We should have no choice. Poor
Madeleine!"