don't let's be sentimental. If there's no chance to make it up
with his family we must get out of this mess and save what we
can."

"Was Mr. Wharton very angry?"

"WAS he?" Mrs. Knight rolled her eyes in mingled rage and despair.
"I'm positively sick over the things he said. Everybody seems to
be against us, and--I'm almost ready to give up. But at least you
saved your good name--it was a marriage, not a scandal. We have
that to be thankful for." She followed this outburst of optimism
with another. "You can keep the name and go into vaudeville. The
publicity will help you, and that old crank will surely stretch
his offer to keep his name off the bill-boards. Of course, we
won't get anything like what we expected, but we'll get something.
Fifteen or twenty thousand is better than--" Noting the shadow of
a smile upon her daughter's lips, she checked her rush of words.
"You don't seem to care what--"

"I don't."

Mrs. Knight's face twisted into an expression of pained
incredulity. "Surely you don't mean to live with Bob?" she gasped.
"Not--NOW."

"I do mean to."

The mother's lips parted, closed, parted again--she seemed to
taste something unspeakably bitter. She groped for words to fit
her state of mind, but words failed her. When she did speak,