urroughs,
collapses on the eve of the wedding, the gossip and the scandal, however
great, are but a small part of the mess. Doubtless many a marriage--and
not in high life alone, either--has been put through, although the one
party or the other or both have discovered that disaster was
inevitable--solely because of the appalling muddle the sensible course
would precipitate. In the case of the Norman-Burroughs fiasco, there
were--to note only a few big items--such difficulties as several car
loads of presents from all parts of the earth to be returned, a house
furnished throughout and equipped to the last scullery maid and stable
boy to be disposed of, the entire Burroughs domestic economy which had
been reconstructed to be put back upon its former basis.

It is not surprising that, as Ursula Fitzhugh was credibly informed,
Josephine almost decided to send for Bob Culver and marry him on the day
before the day appointed for her marriage to Fred. The reason given for
her not doing this sounded plausible. Culver, despairing of making the
match on which his ambition--and therefore his heart was set--and
seeing a chance to get suddenly rich, had embarked for a career as a
blackmailer of corporations. That is, he nosed about for a big
corporation stealthily doing or arranging to do some unlawful but highly
profitable acts; he bought a few shares of its stock, using a fake
client as a blind; he then proceeded to threaten it with exposure,
expensive hindrances and the like, unless it bought him off at a huge
profit to himself. This business was regarded as most disreputable
and--thanks to the power of the big corporations over the courts--had
resulted in the sending of several of its practisers to jail or on hasty
journeys to foreign climes. But Culver, almost if not quite as good a
lawyer as Norman, was too clever to be caught in that way. However,
while he was getting very rich rapidly, he was as yet far from rich
enough to overcome the detestation of old Burroughs, and to be eligible
for the daughter.

So, Josephine sailed away to Europe, with the consolation that her
father was so chagrined by the fizzle that he had withdrawn his veto
upon the purchase of a foreign title--that veto having been the only
reason she had looked at home for a husband. Strange indeed are the ways
of love--never stranger than when it comes into contact with the
vanities of wealth and social position and the other things that cause a
human being