LADIES MUST LIVE [Illustration: She stopped with her hand on the banister, like Louise of Prussia] LADIES MUST LIVE BY ALICE DUER MILLER Author of “Come Out of the Kitchen,” etc. ILLUSTRATED BY PAUL MEYLAN [Illustration: (Publisher’s colophon)] NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1917 Copyright, 1917, by The Century Co. Copyright, 1917, by INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE CO. _Published, October, 1917_ LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE She stopped with her hand on the banister, like Louise of Prussia _Frontispiece_ And then, with a clean towel, he deliberately dried her hands, finger by finger 69 “Isn’t that rather a reckless way for a man in your situation to talk?” 91 “Well, heaven itself can’t save a fool,” said Mrs. Almar 119 It was arranged that he was to bring Dorothy to dine with them that evening 147 He stood like a rock under her caress 173 “May I ask, Mr. Riatt, what rights in the matter you consider that you have?” Linburne pursued 199 “Max,” she said, “I love you” 241 CHAPTER I Mrs. Ussher was having a small house party in the country over New Year’s Day. This is equivalent to saying that the half dozen most fashionable people in New York were out of town. Certain human beings are admitted to have a genius for discrimination in such matters as objects of art, pigs or stocks. Mrs. Ussher had this same instinct in regard to fashion, especially where fashions in people were concerned. She turned toward hidden social availability very much as the douser’s hazel wand turns toward the hidden spring. When she crossed the room to speak to some woman after dinner, whatever that woman’s social position might formerly have been, you could be sure that at present she was on the upward wing. When Mrs. Ussher discovered extraordinary qualities of mind and sympathy in some hitherto impossible man, you might be certain it was time to begin to book him in advance. Not that Mrs. Ussher was a kingmaker; she herself had no more power over the situation than the barometer has over the weather. She merely was able to foretell; she had the sense of approaching social success.