been taken ill and will be brought home as soon as she is able to be
moved," she announced, without turning an eyelash. "Put away her things,
and get the bed ready!" One could see that she was thinking rapidly. She
was a woman who had all her life been equal to an emergency, but never
had quite such a tragic emergency been thrust upon her to camouflage
before.

"James!" catching the eye of the butler, "there will be no reception
to-night, of course, and you will see that the hired people take their
things away as soon as possible, and say that I will agree to whatever
arrangements they see fit to make, within reason, of course. Just use
your judgment, James, and by the way, there will be telephone calls, of
course, from our friends. Say that Miss Betty is somewhat better, and
the doctor hopes to avert a serious nervous breakdown, but that she
needs entire rest and absolute quiet for a few days. Say that and
nothing more, do you understand, James?"

The butler bowed his thorough understanding and Madam Stanhope sailed
nobly up the flower-garlanded staircase, past the huddled musicians, to
her own apartment. Aileen, with a frightened glance, scuttled past the
door as she was closing it:

"Aileen, ask Mr. Herbert to come to my room at once when he has finished
telephoning, and when Mr. Bessemer arrives send him to me at once!" Then
the door closed and the woman was alone with her defeat, and the placid
enameled features melted into an angry snarl like an animal at bay. In a
moment more Herbert stormed in.

"It's all your fault, mother!" he began, with an oath. "If you hadn't
dragged Bessemer into this thing I'd have had her fixed. I had her just
about where I wanted her, and another day would have broken her in.
She's scared to death of insane asylums, and I told her long ago that it
would be dead easy to put a woman in one for life. If I had just hinted
at such a thing she'd have married me as meek as a lamb!"

"Now look here, Bertie," flared his mother excitedly, "you've got to
stop blaming me! Haven't I given in to you all your life, and now you
say it's all my fault the least little thing that happens! It was for
your sake that I stopped you; you know it was. You couldn't carry out
any such crazy scheme. Betty's almost of age, and if those trustees
should find out what you had threatened, you would be in jail for life,
and goodness knows what would become of me."

"Trustees! How would the trustees find it out?"