It was the first time she had ever boasted of being rich. The man
died, whispering: "_Merci, Madame! Merci, Madame!_" Another
father was writhing in the premature hell of leaving a shy little
unprotected boy to starve. Charity promised to care for him, too.

At a committee meeting, a week later, she learned of a horde of
war orphans and divided them up with Muriel Schuyler, Mrs. Perry
Merithew, and other American angels abroad.

When Charity's husband wearied of being what he called "chauffeur to
a butcher-wagon," he decided that America was a pretty good country,
after all. But Charity could not tear herself away from her privilege
of suffering, even to follow her bridegroom home. He had cooled to
her also, and he made no protest. He promised to come back for her.
He did not come. He cabled often and devotedly, telling her how
lonely he was and how busy. She answered that she hoped he was
lonely, but she knew he was busy. He would be!

When Cheever first returned, Jim Dyckman saw him at a club. He saw
him afterward in a restaurant with one of those astonishing animals
which the moving pictures have hardly caricatured as a "vampire."
This one would have been impossible if she had not been visible.
She was intensely visible.

Jim Dyckman felt that her mere presence in a public restaurant was
offensive. To think of her as displacing Charity Coe in Cheever's
attentions was maddening. He understood for the first time why
people of a sort write anonymous letters. He could not stoop to
that degradation, and yet he wondered if, after all, it would be