“I’ll be sorrier if I do. Good-night.”
“I hate you!” and Madeleine ground her teeth in passion. “I hate you for a cruel, unnatural parent! I’ve a notion to turn you out of this house—you horrid old thing! You——”
“Oh, do hush. You act as you used to act when you were a child.”
“And you treat me as cruelly as you did then! If you’d brought me up differently—I might have been a better woman. Oh, you don’t know yet how bad I can be—and I will, too—if you don’t help me out this time!”
“Go to your room, and get over your tantrum. You’ll get no money from me to-night.”
Mrs. Selden rose, and practically pushed her daughter through the doorway to the hall.
Madeleine went—seeing there was no hope of achieving her desire, but she went off muttering vengeance, and with a face white with passion.
In her boudoir again, she called her maid.
“Claudine,” she said, “you must lend me some money—just for this evening. Come now—there’s a dear.”
“Willingly, Madame—but, alas, I have none.”
“That’s not true—you were paid only yesterday.”
“But I sent it away—to my poor sister——”
“Claudine, you’re lying. Now—see here—if you don’t let me have some money—I’ll tell your friend Carl about——”
“No, Madame—no, I beg of you——”
The French maid turned pale with apprehension, and looked beseechingly at her determined mistress.
“Yes, I will—I surely will! Now, you know you have some——”
“Only fifty dollars, Madame—as God is my witness, that’s all I have.”
“Pah! that would do me no good at all! Keep your fifty—but, Claudine, get me Mrs. Sayre on the telephone. And after you get her—leave the room.”
“Yes, Madame.”
Madeleine stretched out on her chaise longue, smiled a little as she waited.
She looked like some sleek well fed cat, about to seize on its unsuspecting prey.
Perhaps students of such things would have said her gambling instinct was an inheritance from some reckless, swashbuckling ancestor.
Others would hold, and more likely they were right, it was the result of the heedless, rushing pace set by the crowd with whom she lived and moved and danced and had her being.
Yet few of that crowd, if any, played so desperately, so feverishly or so continuously as Madeleine.
And none lost so much. Although really a fine player, she seemed one of those who have persistent bad luck, and if she won, she was quite likely to lose all her winnings on one last high-stake game before she stopped.
She loved the excitement of it, the hazard of it, the uncertainty.
And she had the optimism of the true gambler, who always thinks his luck just about to turn to better and to best, quite undaunted by the fact that it never does.
She reconnoitered. She was in desperate straits. If she didn’t pay up last night’s debts to-night, before beginning to play, her creditors, two unprincipled women, had threatened to tell her husband of the situation.
Andrew knew she played Bridge—frequently—almost incessantly—but he had no idea of the height of her stakes, or the terrific amounts she lost.
Always before, her mother had helped her out. Always before, she had won enough to tide over, at least. Always before—she had managed by hook or by crook to keep above water.
But to-night she was desperate. Something must be done—and done quickly.
“Mrs. Sayre on the wire,” Claudine announced, and as Madeleine took up the receiver, the maid left the room.
“Hello, Rosamond,” Madeleine said, “come over a few moments, can’t you?”
“Why, hello, Maddy—what in the world for?”
“I just want to see you. Seems ’s if I can’t get along another minute without seeing you!”
The voice at the other end of the wire gave a short, quick sound of laughter, but there was an uneasy note in it—almost a note of alarm.
“Why, my dear old thing—I can’t come now—I’m dressing. Aren’t you going to Emmy’s to-night?”
“Yes—but not till about eleven.”
“I know—but I’ve an errand first.”
“So’ve I. Look here, Rosamond, you’d better come over here. Slip into a little street frock and run over for a minute. You can walk it in no time—Harrison won’t know you’re out of the house.”
“But why? Why must I do that?” The voice was petulant now, and Madeleine’s became more commanding.
“Because I say so. Come along, now!”
She hung up the receiver with a snap, and summoned Claudine again.
“Dress me quickly,” she commanded, “all but my gown. Do my hair small and plain. Yes—flesh-colored stockings.”
The apt maid understood and with Madeleine’s approval did the dark, soft hair into a compact mass that was becoming but not elaborate.
By the time the negligée was thrown over the silken undergarments there came a light tap at the door.
“That will be Mrs. Sayre,” Madeleine said; “let her in, Claudine, and disappear.”
“Well, sweetie, what’s up?” and Rosamond Sayre dropped into an easy chair and lighted a cigarette.
“Just had to see you,” returned Madeleine, falling back on the chaise longue. “How’s your husband?”
“Harrison? Oh, he’s all right.”
“Funny little man—isn’t he?”
“Yes—why?” Mrs. Sayre seemed in no wise offended.
“But fond of you?”
“As whose husband isn’t—if the wife wants him to be?”
“And proud of you?”
“Why shouldn’t he be?”
Rosamond Sayre looked at herself in a mirror.
“He’d be blind if he didn’t see reason to be proud of me,” she said, airily, flicking her cigarette ashes on the rug.
She gave an impression of absolute self-satisfaction. Her beryl eyes flashed with vanity, her great masses of gold-brown hair clustered over her ears and framed a piquant, bewitching face. Her dashing little figure and vivacious gestures betokened self-reliance, as well as self approval.
“Come on, now, Maddy—out with it,” she said; “I must run, in ten minutes, at most. Going to scold me, kid me—or borrow money of me?” She eyed her friend rather sharply.
“Good guesser!” Madeleine cried. “The third time conquers. I’m going to borrow money of you.”
“Broke—haven’t a cent!” and the beryl eyes showed darker glints in them.
“Pooh, don’t come that over me. Harrison will give you a thousand in a minute—if you ask him prettily.”