“Father––married to––a French––adventuress! Oh!”
The long-cherished hope of a speedy inheritance of his snug fortune lay blasted at her feet.
The telephone bell rang sharply, and she rose dully to answer it. The call came from the city editor of one of the great dailies. “It is reported,” said the voice, “that your ward, Miss Carmen Ariza, is the illegitimate daughter of a negro priest, now in South America. We would like your denial, for we learn that it was for this reason that you and the young lady were not included among the guests at the Ames reception last evening.”
Mrs. Hawley-Crowles’s legs tottered under her, as she blindly wandered from the telephone without replying. Carmen––the daughter of a priest! Her father a negro––her mother, what? She, a mulatto, illegitimate––!
The stunned woman mechanically took up the morning paper which lay on the table. Her glance was at once attracted to the great headlines announcing the complete exposure of the Simití bubble. Her eyes nearly burst from her head as she grasped its fatal meaning to her. With a low, inarticulate sound issuing from her throat, she turned and groped her way back to her boudoir.
Meanwhile, the automobile in which Carmen was speeding to the Beaubien mansion was approached by a bright, smiling young woman, as it halted for a moment at a street corner. Carmen recognized her as a reporter for one of the evening papers, who had called often at the Hawley-Crowles mansion that season for society items.
“Isn’t it fortunate!” exclaimed the young reporter. “I was 186 on my way to see you. Our office received a report this morning from some source that your father––you know, there has been some mystery about your parentage––that he was really a priest, of South America. His name––let me think––what did they say it was?”
“Josè?” laughed the innocent girl, utterly unsuspecting. The problem of her descent had really become a source of amusement to her.
“It began with a D, if I am not mistaken. I’m not up on Spanish names,” the young woman returned pleasantly.