The footman behind Mrs. Conover, at the door, tried to look as though he had heard nothing, and bitterly regretted he had not been allowed to hear more. But Letty was silenced as she always was when the Railroader adopted his present tone. She obediently scuttled down the hall toward the library, an open letter fluttering in her hand. Caleb followed; and, at a word from his father, Gerald accompanied his parents. As soon as the library door closed behind the trio, Mrs. Conover’s grief again rose from subdued sniffling to unchecked tears. “Oh, talk out, can’t you!” growled Conover. “What’s up? That letter there? Is——?” “Yes,” gurgled poor Letty, torn between the luxury of weeping and the fear of offending Caleb, “it’s—it’s from Blanche at Lake Como, and—and—Oh, she isn’t married at all—and——!” “WHAT?” roared Conover. Even Gerald dropped his cigarette. “It’s—it’s _true_, Caleb!” wailed Letty. “She isn’t. And——” “What are you blithering about? Here!” Conover snatched the letter and glanced over it. Then with a snort he thrust it back into his wife’s hand. “French!” he sniffed, in withering contempt. “Why in hell can’t the girl write her own language, so folks can understand what she’s——?” “She’s always written her letters to me in French ever since she was at school in Passy. They told her it——” “Never mind what they told her. What’s the letter say? Ain’t married? Why——!” “She _was_ married. But she isn’t. And——” “You talk like a man in a cave. Is d’Antri dead, or——” Her husband’s frenzied impatience, as usual, served to drive the cowed little rabbit-like woman into worse agonies of incoherence. But by degrees, and through dint of much questioning, the whole sordid petty tragedy related in the Como postmarked letter was at length extracted from her. Blanche, thanks to her heavy dower and her prince’s family connections, had cut more or less of a swath in certain strata of continental society during these early days of her stay in d’Antri’s world. Her husband’s ancestral rock with its tumble-down castle had been bought back, and the edifice itself put into course of repair. A bijou little house on the Parc Monceau and a palazzo at Florence had been added to the Conover fortune’s purchases, and at each of these latter abodes a gaudy fête had been planned, to introduce the American princess and her dollars to the class of people who proposed henceforth to endure the one for the sake of the other. Then, according to the letter, a château on the north shore of Como had been rented for the autumn months. Here the bride and groom had dwelt in Claude Melnotte fashion for barely a week when another woman appeared. The newcomer was a singer formerly employed at the Scala, but now just returned from a prolonged South American tour. Her voice had given out, and, faced by poverty, she had prudently unearthed certain proofs to the effect that, twelve years earlier, she had secretly married Prince Amadeo d’Antri, then a youth of twenty-two.