“Yes, it is large, but what am I to do?” said Gloria. “My second husband wished it on me and my third was kind enough to settle enough income on me to pay the taxes, and there you are. Of course I could let it to some one else, but it’s nice to have a lot of room.”
Ruth could not disguise her shock and astonishment.
“Oh, didn’t you know?” asked Gloria, smiling cheerfully.
“I didn’t know you’d been married at all,” said Ruth.
“Only once, really—the others were almost too casual. I supposed your mother had told you.”
“Did they die?” asked Ruth.
“Not to my knowledge—I never killed any of them,” said Gloria.
And Ruth put this conversation away in the back of her brain for future reference, along with several dozen other things that she didn’t exactly understand.
CHAPTER II
Ruth would have liked a scholarship—not because she could not easily afford the small fees at the Art Students’ League, but because a scholarship would have meant that she had unusual talent; but she didn’t get one. No one seemed particularly interested in her work. The woman who enrolled her in the League was as casual as a clerk in an hotel.