exclaimed in conclusion, glowering over the young girl who sat before
her, "for I paid a good three thousand for the string! But, in
addition, to scandalize me before the world--oh, how could you? And
this unspeakable Jude--and that awful house--heavens, girl! Who would
believe your story if it should get out?" The worried woman's face was
bathed in cold perspiration.

"But--she saved me from--from that place," protested the harassed
Carmen. "She was poor and cold--I could see that. Why should I have
things that I don't need when others are starving?"

Mrs. Hawley-Crowles shook her weary head in despair. Her sister, Mrs.
Reed, who had sat fixing the girl with her cold eyes throughout the
stormy interview following their return from the ball, now offered a
suggestion. "The thing to do is to telephone immediately to all the
newspapers, and say that her beads were stolen last night."

"But they weren't stolen," asserted the girl. "I gave them to her--"

"Go to your room!" commanded Mrs. Hawley-Crowles, at the limit of her
endurance. "And never, under any circumstances, speak of this affair
to any one--never!"

The social crown, which had rested none too securely upon the gilded
wig of the dynamic Mrs. Hawley-Crowles, had been given a jolt that set
it tottering.

* * * * *

It was very clear to Mrs. J. Wilton Ames after the Charity Ball that
she was engaged in a warfare to the death, and with the most
relentless of enemies. Nothing short of the miraculous could now
dethrone the detested Mrs. Hawley-Crowles and her beautiful,
mysterious ward. She dolefully acknowledged to herself and to the
sulking Kathleen that she had been asleep, that she had let her foot
slip, and that her own husband's conduct in leading the grand march
with Carmen bade fair to give the _coup de grace_ to a social prestige
which for many weeks had been decidedly on the wane.

"Mamma, we'll have to think up some new stunts," said the dejected
Kathleen over the teacups the noon following the ball. "Why, they've
even broken into the front page of the newspapers with a fake jewelry
theft! Look, they pretend that the little minx was robbed of her
string of pearls last night on leaving the hall. I call that pretty
cheap notoriety!"

Mrs. Ames's lip curled in disdain as she read the news item. "An Inca
princess, indeed! Nobody knows who she is, nor what! Why doesn't
somebody take the trouble to investigate