And this was only one little instance of many that made Ethel sure that Fanny Carr was still about. She was getting at Joe through his business side, going to his office. She had asked him to sell her house on Long Island, and through this transaction she had tangled him into her affairs. A lone woman, defenceless in business, needing the aid and advice of a man. "Oh, I can almost hear her lay it on--her helplessness!" And Ethel fairly ground her teeth. For Fanny, only the day before, having called and noticed that a sofa and a rug were missing, had asked to what dealer Ethel had sold them. "Now," thought Ethel, "she'll buy them herself, and then she'll ask Joe to drop in for tea at her hotel apartment--'on business,' of course-but the rug and sofa will be there! Poor Amy's things! Oh, yes, indeed, Fanny is clever enough! If only she would take his money--and get out and leave us alone!" Ethel had some lonely grapples with life. She was right, she angrily told herself, in wanting to go slowly until she could discover real friends; but on the other hand she admitted that Joe had reason for being impatient. At thirty-seven it is hard for a man to change his habits, and Amy had accustomed Joe to crave excitement every night. Even Ethel herself, in some of her moods, felt restless to go about and be gay. And again and again the youth in her rebelled against the trap into which she had fallen. "The minute I even propose a play, I show him I'm well enough to go out. And then he asks, 'Why not Amy's friends?' And he remembers the mean little things that Fanny Carr must have told him--the beast!--and so he says, 'I see it all. Ethel is only bluffing. Now that I'm rich she's trying to make me drop the friends and the memory of the wife who stood by me when I was poor.'" Ethel even went out twice to their detestable parties, in the faint hope of finding one woman at least she would care to know. But if there had been any such, Fanny was careful to leave them out. Friends, friends, friends of her own! Where to find them? On the streets, as she went about at her shopping, she saw so many attractive people, and she drew their glances, too. She had developed since her marriage; she had a distinctive beauty, and she had learned how to foster that. Almost always she felt the hungry eyes of men, good, bad and indifferent, rich men, beggars, Christians, Jews. But that of course was only annoying. Ethel wanted women friends. On the street, from her elegant little car, she could see women who were walking glance at her with envy, just as she herself had done in her first year in the city. The thought brought a humorous smile to her lips. And looking at the constant stream of motors passing, she inquired, "How many of us are there, in this imposing procession, who haven't a single friend in town?" How they all passed on. How coolly indifferent, self-absorbed! Was there no entering wedge to their lives?