“Why, then of course, they would open his safe and examine all his papers, but his wife won’t hear to anything being touched till he gets out of danger, so we just have to wait.”

“Well, I’m not going to worry about it,” said Nannette with a toss of her head. “If the will isn’t right we’ll just break it, that’s all. I’m not going to let that girl get in the way of my happiness. There’s more than one way of going about things, and, as you say, she has that kind of a conscience. If that’s her weak point we’ll work her through that. If she thinks her beloved Aunt Mary is going to be proved in court as not of sound mind, she’ll give up the hair on her head. I know her. Smug-faced little fanatic! How on earth did she ever get wished on your mother for life anyway? You’ve never told me.”

“Oh, her mother was mother’s youngest sister, and idol. Mother was perfectly insane about her. Then she married this Radway, and everybody said it was a great match, brilliant young doctor and all that. But the brilliant young doctor showed he hadn’t a grain of sense in his head. He discovered some new germ or other and then he went to work experimenting on it, and two or three times was saved from death just by the skin of his teeth. Finally he let them inoculate him with the thing, just to observe its workings. He knew he was running[24] a great risk when he did it, and yet he was ass enough to go ahead. When he died they sold the house and a good deal of the furnishings. Mother had some of the things up in the attic a long time. I don’t know what became of them. Sold I suppose, perhaps to get that fox fur. Mother was just daffy on that girl. She always wanted a daughter you know. And after Aunt Helen died,—she didn’t live many months after her husband, just faded away you know—why mother did everything for Joyce.”

[24]

“Well, I think she did more than she had any right to do for just a niece,” said Nannette scornfully. “It’s time you had your innings. I think your mother should have thought of her own son and her grandchildren, and not lavished fox furs on a mere relation. She just spoiled Joyce. She thinks she has to live in luxury, and it’s going to be very hard to break her in to working for her living.”

The clock was striking twelve before Nannette began to undress, and now and then she would cast an anxious eye out of the window and wonder how long the erring girl’s nerve would hold out, or whether she had really dared go to some neighbor’s and stay all night. If she had what could they do?

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