Mrs. Harlan called herself a widow, and if the definition of a widow is “a woman who has lost her husband,” she held good claim to that title. Just how this loss occurred was, however, a matter that was shrouded in mystery. No one of her large and rather gay circle of intimate friends either knew or greatly troubled themselves about the matter. She had been known to speak of “Mr. Harlan” and of “my husband,” but it was quite impossible to gather from her manner whether she mourned his loss or gloried in her freedom.
There are in New York many circles of what is politely called society, and entrance to these circles is more or less easy of access, depending upon just which one of these charmed rings one wishes to enter. Mrs. Harlan’s “set” was one of those to which entrance depended solely upon possession of a decent wardrobe and the desire to have what is rather vaguely called “a good time!” “A good time” is very like “a good dinner,” in that one’s appreciation of it depends largely upon personal taste; “what is one man’s meat may be another’s poison,” and what to some is “a good time,” to others would hardly be dignified by that title.
Mrs. Harlan and her friends, however, were perfectly satisfied with existence, and rushed from theatre to restaurant, and from road house to friendly little games of chance in one another’s apartments with an energy that never seemed to tire.
Without this class Heaven alone knows what would become of the theatre, the gay restaurants, the taxicab owners, and even the automobile manufacturers. They, at least, make work for others, however little real work they do themselves, although even among these persons were a few men who fought hard all day for the money that kept their endless chain of gayety running through the better part of the night.
The man who has learned the difference between gayety and happiness has solved one of the greatest secrets of life; such men are rare; at least they were not numbered among Mrs. Harlan’s friends.
The lady herself was a handsome woman of rather generous proportions, her age, like her husband’s exact fate, being one of the very few subjects on which she preserved a discreet silence. She was by no means a bad woman, according to her lights, but her lights burned dim at times, and she had that smoldering hatred of the orthodox members of respectability that is never absent from the heart of a clever woman who knows that she has forever put herself beyond its pale.
Dick Fenway, very soon after his arrival in New York, became one of the inner circle of Mrs. Harlan’s intimates, both by virtue of his natural gayety and the fact that he was what is known as a good spender, meaning a person who, no matter how great his expenditure may be, is never by any possible chance known to do the slightest good with his money.
At first gossip was inclined to connect his name with that of the fair widow, but if, for a time, there had been anything but friendship between them, it soon burned itself out. Whatever her age, she was at least old enough to have been his mother, and, reckless as he was, he had far too much natural shrewdness to allow himself to become so completely entangled that escape would be impossible.
He made no secret of the fact that he had been unhappily married; in fact he took pains that the ladies of this particular circle should know of it, an unhappy marriage being not only a sure passport to their sympathy, but acting as a sort of insurance against any too ambitious hopes that his friendly attentions might arouse.
From the day, now some months ago, when he met Lola Barnhelm, until some time after her accident, he had dropped out of the sight of his friends, and upon his return he offered no explanation for his absence, other than that he had been having a stupid time and was anxious to make up for it.