But in the following months Augusta brooded.
“I do not consider myself divorced from Mr. Tabor,” she told the reporter. “The whole proceedings were irregular. If it were not for my son, Maxcy, I would commence suit tomorrow to have the divorce annulled. I repeat, it was illegal.”
“Do you think Mr. Tabor would live with you if you were to have the divorce set aside?” the reporter asked.
“No, I couldn’t hope for that. But it would be a great deal of satisfaction to know that that woman was no more to him than she was before he gave her his name and mine.”
Augusta glanced over to the center table where she had laid down her sewing, a piece of silk patchwork. The reporter thought she looked lonely and sad-faced. Then she sighed.
“Well, there has been scandal enough, God knows. It would make a big volume if put in book form. It has aged me.”
A new chapter of the scandal was being enacted that week. Horace Tabor was suing his old friend and business manager, William H. Bush, for $25,000 because of sundry debts, including a $2,000 embezzlement as former manager of the Tabor Grand Opera House of Denver. Bush had retaliated with a counter-suit against Tabor, asking payment for all sorts of flagrant services performed for the Silver King. The juicy trial was the sensation of the week.
Augusta had been called to testify for Bush. Her testimony had been very titillating; and she had startled the court even further by crossing over and sitting down beside Tabor while she tried to engage him in conversation.
“Mr. Tabor has changed a great deal,” she commented to the reporter. “He used to detest women of that kind. He would never allow me to whitewash my face however much I desired to do so. She wants his money and will hang to him as long as he has got a nickel. She don’t want an old man.”
The reporter ventured the suggestion that the fifty-two-year old Tabor was not such an old man.