"She is lovely. We've been really quite hateful about her, Betty and I. Down in our hearts we like her. She was a spoiled child, of course, and all that sort of thing, but heaven knows she's been pretty thoroughly made over in a new crucible. We used to feel terribly sorry for her, even while we were deriding her for the fool she had made of herself in marrying him. I've seen her hundreds of times driving about alone in Vienna, where they spent two winters, a really pathetic figure, scorned not only by her husband but by every one else. He never was to be seen in public with her. He made it clear to his world that she was not to be inflicted upon it by any unnecessary act of his. She came to see Betty and me occasionally; always bright and proud and full of spirit, but we could see the wounds in her poor little heart no matter how hard she tried to hide them. I tell you, John, they like us as women but they despise us as wives. It will always be the same with them. They won't let us into their charmed circle. Thank God, I am married to an American. He _must_ respect me whether he wants to or not." "Poor little beggar," said I, without thinking of how it would sound to her; "she has had her fling, and she has paid well for it." "If her stingy old father, who permitted her to get into the scrape, would come up like a man and pay what he ought to pay, there would be no more pother about this business. He hasn't lived up to his bargain. The--Mr. Pless has squandered the first million and now he wants the balance due him. A trade's a trade, John. The old man ought to pay up. He went into it with his eyes open, and I haven't an atom of sympathy for him. You have read that book of Mrs. O'Burnett's, haven't you?--'The Shuttle'? Well, there you are. This is but another example of what fools American parents can be when they get bees in their bonnets." She seemed to be accusing me! "I hope she gets away safely with the kiddie," said I, non-committally. "Heaven knows where she is. Maybe she's as safe as a bug in a rug." "I shouldn't be surprised," said I. The Billy Smiths and George Hazzard came up at this juncture. Elsie at once proceeded to go into a long series of conjectures as to the probable whereabouts of Mr. Pless's former wife and their child. I was immensely gratified to find that they were now undivided in their estimate of Mr. Pless and firmly allied on the side of the missing countess. I gathered from their remarks that the young woman's mother and brothers were still in Paris, where their every movement was being watched by secret agents. They were awaiting the arrival from New York of the father of the countess, after which they were to come to Vienna for the purpose of making a determined fight for the daughter's absolute freedom and the custody of the child. Somehow this news gave me a strange feeling of apprehension, a sensation that later on was to be amply justified.