Kedzie's funds were drawn away astoundingly faster than even Dyckman could replenish them. Hideous accounts of starving legions were brandished before the eyes of all Americans. Every day Kedzie's mail contained circulars about blind soldiers, orphan-throngs, bread-lines in every nation at war. There were hellish chronicles of Armenian women and children driven like cattle from desert to desert, outraged and flogged and starved by the thousand.
The imagination gave up the task. The miseries of the earth were more numerous than the sands, and the eyes came to regard them as impassively as one looks at the night sky without pausing to count the flakes in that snowstorm of stars. One says, “It is a nice night.” One said, “These are terrible times.” Then one said, “May I have the next dance?” or, “Isn't supper ready yet?”
Kedzie tried for a while to lift herself from the common ruck of the aristocracy by outshining the others in charities and in splendors. She soon grew weary of the everlasting appeals for money to send to Europe. She grew weary of writing checks and putting on costumes for bazaars, spectacles, parades, and carnivals. She found herself circumscribed by so much altruism. Her benevolences left her too little for her magnificences.
She grew frantic for more fun and more personal glory. The extravagance of other women dazed her. Some of them had inexhaustible resources. Some of them were bankrupting their own boodle-bag husbands. Some of them flourished ingeniously by running up bills and never running them down.
The competition was merciless. She kept turning to Jim for money. He grew less and less gracious, because her extravagances were more and more selfish. He grew less and less superior to complaints. He started bank-accounts to get rid of her, but she got rid of them with a speed that frightened him. He hated to be used.
Kedzie took umbrage at Mrs. Dyckman's manner. Mrs. Dyckman tried for a while to be good to the child, strove to love her, forgave her for her youth and her humble origin; but finally she tired of her, because Kedzie was not making Jim's life happier, more useful, or more distinguished.
Then one day Mrs. Dyckman asked Kedzie for a few moments of her time. Kedzie was in a hurry to an appointment at her hairdresser's, but she seated herself patiently. Mrs. Dyckman said:
“My dear, I have just had a cable from my daughter Cicely. She has broken down, and her physician has ordered her out of England for a rest. She is homesick, she says, and Heaven knows we are homesick for her.
“I am afraid she would not feel at home in any room but her old one, and I know you won't mind. You can have your choice. Some of the other rooms are really pleasanter. Will you look them over and let me know, so that I can have your things moved?”
“Certainly, my dear m'mah!” said Kedzie.