a figure of consternation. 

 CHAPTER III—ANOTHER LETTER AND WHAT FOLLOWED IT

Suzanne, her letter crumpled in her hand, had gone directly to her own room. There she read it for the second time, its baleful import sinking deeper into her consciousness with every sentence. It was in typewriting and bore the Berkeley postmark: 

CONTENTS

" Dear Mrs. Price: 

 Dear Mrs. Price

 "This is just a line to give your memory and your conscience a jog. Your bridge debts are accumulating. Also, I hear, there are dressmakers and milliners in town who are growing restive. If there was insufficient means I wouldn't bother you, but any one who dresses and spends as you do hasn't that excuse. Perhaps you don't know what is being said and felt. Believe me you wouldn't like it; neither would Mrs. Janney. It is for her sake that I am warning you. I don't want to see her hurt and humiliated as she would be if this comes out in The Eavesdropper, and it will unless you act quickly. 'There's a chiel among you takin' notes' and that chiel's had a line on you for some time. So take these words to heart and as the boys say, 'Come across.' 

 " A Friend." 

 A Friend.

Ever since the opening of the season the summer colony of which Berkeley was the hub had been the subject of paragraphs—more or less scandalous—appearing in The Eavesdropper. The paper, a scurrilous weekly, had evidently some inside informer, for most of the disclosures were true and could only have been obtained by a member of the community. Suzanne, whose debts would make racy reading, had quaked every time she opened it. So far she had been spared, and she had hoped to escape by a gradual clearing off of her obligations. But she had not been able to do it—unforeseen things had happened. And now the dreaded had come to pass—she would be written up in The Eavesdropper. 

 Though her allowance had been princely she had kept on going over it ever since her marriage and her mother had kept on covering the deficit. But last autumn Mrs. Janney had lost both patience and temper and put her foot down with a final stamp. Then the winter had come, a feverish, crowded winter of endless parties and endless card playing, and Suzanne had somehow gone over it 

 Prev. P 17/189 next