es rather come and have tea with her one day, any day, at the
Plaza Hotel? She was staying there until the house her husband had
bought for her (quite near the Doran house) should be out of the
decorator's hands.

But the last thing that appealed to Josephine was the thought of a cozy
chat about "that darling boy" Max. Besides, the moment was a bad one
with her. Captain de la Tour had got long leave and come to America, she
did not know why at first, and had been inclined to feel rather
flattered, if slightly frightened. But soon she found out. He had come
to blackmail her. There were some silly letters she had written when
they were in the thick of their flirtation at Sidi-bel-Abbes, and the
height of her ambition had been to marry a French officer, no matter how
poor. Captain de la Tour had kept those letters.

He did not threaten to show them to Grant Doran-Reeves. He judged the
other man by himself and realized that, having married a girl for her
money, Grant would not throw her over, or even hurt her feelings, while
she still had it.

What Captain de la Tour proposed was to sell the letters and tell the
romantic story of Mrs. Doran-Reeves's life in a little Algerian hotel if
she did not buy up the whole secret and his estates in France at the
same time. For the two together he asked only the ridiculously small
price of three hundred thousand francs--sixty thousand dollars.

Josephine had raged, for Grant, even more than she, hated to spend money
where a show could not be made with it. But Captain de la Tour was
rather insistent and got on her nerves. In an hysterical fit, therefore,
she made a clean breast of the story to her husband. When she had
described to him as well as she could what was in the letters, and what
a Bohemian sort of life she had led in Bel-Abbes, Grant decided that it
would be romantic as well as sensible to buy the Chateau de la Tour.
Josephine had actually been born there; and they could either keep the
place or sell it when it had been improved a bit and made famous by a
few choice house-parties.

So the Doran-Reeveses bought the chateau and got back the letters, and
hoped that Captain de la Tour would take himself and his ill-gotten
gains out of the United States. But he lingered, looking out for an
American heiress, while Josephine existed in a state of constant
irritation, fearing some new demand or an indiscretion. And it was just
at this time that she received Mrs. Jeff Houston's l