"Doris and Catharine were in a rotten show I backed. And when
I couldn't afford to back it any longer Doris was ungrateful
enough to marry a man who cultivated dates, figs, and pecan
nuts out in lower California, and Catharine has just written
me a most impertinent letter saying that real men grew only
west of the Mississippi, and that she is about to marry one
of them who knows more in half a minute than anybody could
ever learn during a lifetime in New York, meaning me and
Hargrave. I guess she meant me; and I guess it's so--about
Hargrave. Except for myself, we certainly are a bunch of
boobs in this out-of-date old town.

"Now about Athalie,--she dropped out of sight after you went
abroad. Nobody seemed to know where she was or what she was
doing. Nobody ever saw her at restaurants or theatres except
during the first few weeks after your departure. And then she
was usually with that Dane chap--you know--the explorer. I
wrote to her sisters making inquiries in behalf of myself and
Francis Hargrave; but they either didn't know or wouldn't
tell us where she was living. Neither would Dane. I didn't
suppose he knew at the time; but he did.

"Well, what do you think has happened? Athalie Greensleeve is
the most talked about girl in town! She has become the
fashion, Clive. You hear her discussed at dinners, at dances,
everywhere.