-room as he was
crossing from the cloak-room to the cigar-stand. The latter was a
typical society figure, tall, lean, smooth-faced, immaculately garbed,
a little cynical, and to-night a little the worse for liquor. "Hi,
Lester!" he called out, "what's this talk about a menage
of yours out in Hyde Park? Say, you're going some. How are you going
to explain all this to your wife when you get married?"

"I don't have to explain it," replied Lester irritably. "Why should
you be so interested in my affairs? You're not living in a stone
house, are you?"

"Say, ha! ha! that's pretty good now, isn't it? You didn't marry
that little beauty you used to travel around with on the North Side,
did you? Eh, now! Ha, ha! Well, I swear. You married! You didn't, now,
did you?"

"Cut it out, Whitney," said Lester roughly. "You're talking
wild."

"Pardon, Lester," said the other aimlessly, but sobering. "I beg
your pardon. Remember, I'm just a little warm. Eight whisky-sours
straight in the other room there. Pardon. I'll talk to you some time
when I'm all right. See, Lester? Eh! Ha! ha! I'm a little loose,
that's right. Well, so long! Ha! ha!"

Lester could not get over that cacophonous "ha! ha!" It cut him,
even though it came from a drunken man's mouth. "That little beauty
you used to travel with on the North Side. You didn't marry her, did
you?" He quoted Whitney's impertinences resentfully. George! But this
was getting a little rough! He had never endured anything like this
before--he, Lester Kane. It set him thinking. Certainly he was
paying dearly for trying to do the kind thing by Jennie.

CHAPTER XLI

But worse was to follow. The American public likes gossip about
well-known people, and the Kanes were wealthy and socially prominent.
The report was that Lester, one of its principal heirs, had married a
servant girl. He, an heir to millions! Could it be possible? What a
piquant morsel for the newspapers! Very soon the paragraphs began to
appear. A small society paper, called the South Side Budget,
referred to him anonymously as "the son of a famous and wealthy
carriage manufacturer of Cincinnati," and outlined briefly what it
knew of the story. "Of Mrs. ----" it went on, sagely, "not
so much is known, except that she once worked in a well-known
Cleveland society family as a maid and was, before that, a
working-girl in Columbus, Ohio. After such a picturesque love-affair
in high society, who shall say that romance is