"Doris and Catharine were in a rotten show I backed. And when I couldn't afford to back it any longer Doris was ungrateful enough to marry a man who cultivated dates, figs, and pecan nuts out in lower California, and Catharine has just written me a most impertinent letter saying that real men grew only west of the Mississippi, and that she is about to marry one of them who knows more in half a minute than anybody could ever learn during a lifetime in New York, meaning me and Hargrave. I guess she meant me; and I guess it's so--about Hargrave. Except for myself, we certainly are a bunch of boobs in this out-of-date old town. "Now about Athalie,--she dropped out of sight after you went abroad. Nobody seemed to know where she was or what she was doing. Nobody ever saw her at restaurants or theatres except during the first few weeks after your departure. And then she was usually with that Dane chap--you know--the explorer. I wrote to her sisters making inquiries in behalf of myself and Francis Hargrave; but they either didn't know or wouldn't tell us where she was living. Neither would Dane. I didn't suppose he knew at the time; but he did. "Well, what do you think has happened? Athalie Greensleeve is the most talked about girl in town! She has become the fashion, Clive. You hear her discussed at dinners, at dances, everywhere. "Some bespectacled guy from Columbia University had an article about her in one of the recent magazines. Every paper has had something to say concerning her. They all disagree except on one point,--that Athalie Greensleeve is the most beautiful woman in New York. How does that hit you, Clive? "Well, here's the key to the box of tricks. I'll hand it to you now. Athalie has turned into a regular, genuine, out and out clairvoyant, trade-marked patented. And society with a big _S_ and science with a little _s_ are fighting to take her up and make a plaything of her. And the girl is making all kinds of money. "Of course her beauty and pretty manners are doing most of it for her, but here's another point: rumour has it that she's perfectly sincere and honest in her business. "How can she be, Clive? I ask you. Also I hand it to her press-agent. He's got every simp in town on the run. He knows his public. "Well, the first time I met her she was dining with Dane again at the Arabesque. She seemed really glad to see me. There's a girl who remains unaffected and apparently unspoiled by her success. And she certainly has delightful manners. Dane glowered at me but Athalie made me sit down for a few minutes. Gad! I was that flattered to be seen with such a looker! "She told me how it began--she couldn't secure a decent position, and all her money was gone, when in came an old guy who had patronised the medium whose rooms she was living in.