It was the evening of one of Mrs. Chandler's most pretentious dinner parties, at which the wealth and fashion of New York had been largely represented, and Evelyn Chandler, in a decollete gown of gray crepe and La France roses, had rarely appeared to greater advantage, her sparkling wit and brilliancy of humor making her the attraction of the evening.
From a distance Leonie looked on, her rebellious heart throbbing with something very like envy, a sentiment of which she was infinitely ashamed, but seemed unable to control. Lynde Pyne, too, was there, and a short conversation had taken place between them that had convinced her that he loved the heiress, though he was doubtful of the success of his suit. She had rarely if ever been more miserable than when she saw the last guest depart.
She was dragging herself wearily to her room when a slight noise in an adjacent hall attracted her. The subdued sound aroused her suspicions, and slipping her slippers from her feet she advanced silently toward it.
"What are you doing here again?" she heard a voice ask in a whisper, a voice so evidently Evelyn Chandler's that there was no room left for doubt.
"I have come for money!" a man replied, in a half dogged, wholly defiant sort of way.
"What, again?"
"Yes, and I must have it now!"
"But I have not a dollar in the world."
"That is not true; and if it were you could get it easily enough, as you have done before."
"You told me, when I gave you the first thousand, that that would be the last."