only I must stop in Forty-second Street first--at
a jeweller's--to get a ring I ordered." Grinning stupidly at Hadley,
he went on: "Great idea--diamonds! You can do anything with a woman if
you give her all the jewels she wants! See, my boy?"

A few minutes more and the two men, the taller one of whom walked
somewhat unsteadily, were on Fifth Avenue, making their way towards
Forty-second Street.

Ten days later there appeared among the society notes of the New York
_Herald_ this paragraph:

"Robert Stafford, the well-known railroad promoter, was married
yesterday at St. Patrick's Cathedral to Virginia Blaine, second
daughter of the late John Blaine, once a well-known lawyer of this
city. The ceremony was strictly private, the marriage being known only
to a few intimate friends. The young couple sailed yesterday afternoon
for Europe on their honeymoon."

CHAPTER XI

The Stafford wedding was a nine-days' sensation and then people forgot
all about it. Society mothers with marriageable daughters said that it
was scandalous for a man of wealth and position to throw himself away
on a penniless nobody, and malicious tongues freely predicted that
before long the railroad man would regret the foolish step he had
taken.

But for the present, at least, Stafford gave no indication of
regretting anything. On the contrary, he and his young wife had come
back from Europe in the highest of spirits, and immediately after
their return to New York the millionaire proceeded to convince his
critics of their error by throwing open his new house and entertaining
on a lavish scale. For some time before his marriage Stafford had
realized that his old apartment, comfortable as it was for the
bachelor, would be quite inadequate for a married couple; so, getting
rid of his lease, he had bought further down the Avenue near
Seventy-second street a fine American basement house. It was a large
modern residence, exquisitely furnished and supplied with every luxury
money could buy. Virginia's private suite was particularly beautiful,
being decorated in white and gold, in imitation of Queen Marie
Antoinette's apartments at the Little Trianon.

To Virginia this new life of luxury and pleasure was like a chapter
from the "Arabian Nights." It seemed unreal, like some fantastic dream
from which, sooner or later, there must be an abrupt awakening. For
years she had been so accustomed to the gnawing anxieties of poverty
that this sudden super