The invidious statements that stole into circulation regarding her could not be traced either to the vengeance of Beverley Thurston's sister or the jealousy of Stuart Goldwin's abandoned worshiper. It is possible that the most leal of Claire's defenders never thought of so tracing them. But the statements were made, and took wing. She had been a vulgar girl of the people. Her parentage was of the most plebeian sort. A lucky marriage had given her the chance, now accepted and enlarged. Her maiden name had been this, that, and the other. She was absolutely nobody. Claire heard none of these scorching comments. She reigned too haughtily for that. Mrs. Diggs heard them, but Mrs. Diggs betrayed no sign of their existence. Goldwin was now devotedly at Claire's side; they were repeatedly seen in public together; the world in which she ruled considered it a splendid subjugation; she had brought the great Wall Street King obsequiously to her feet. But no breath of slander tainted the relation between them. Claire had been very clever; she had blunted the first arrow, so to speak. She had done so by means of her complete innocence. Goldwin was in love with her; no one doubted this. It was something notable to have said of one. But she was so safely not in love with Goldwin that she could continually, by strokes of frank tact, show the world her own calm recipiency and his entire subservience. A swift yet sure chasm widened between herself and Hollister. The latter had become a man of incessant and imperative engagements. Claire never dreamed of feeling a jealous pang, and yet she knew that her husband, no less than herself, had become a star of fashion. Hollister was assiduously courted. He and Claire would now meet once a day, and sometimes not so often. They had separate apartments; it was so much more convenient for both. The same dinner-engagement frequently claimed them; but on these occasions she would appear in the lower hall to meet him, rustling beneath some new miracle of dressmaking, and they would get into the carriage together and be driven to the appointed place. At the dinner they would be widely separated. He would sit beside some woman glad to have secured him; she would be the companion of some man happy because of her nearness. The dinner would break up; the hour would be somewhat late; they would get into their carriage; Hollister would have an appointment, at the club, or somewhere. He would let Claire into the great new house with his latch-key. "Good night," he would say, and hurry off into the carriage that had waited for him. Claire would ascend and be disrobed by a sleepy maid. To-morrow there would perhaps be another dinner, of the same sort. Or it might be an affair to which she went alone, and from which Goldwin accompanied her home. Goldwin was always prepared to accompany her. He obeyed her nod.