LIFE THE INTERPRETER BY PHYLLIS BOTTOME LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 91 AND 93 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK LONDON AND BOMBAY 1902 Copyright, 1902, BY LONGMANS, GREEN & CO. ROBERT DRUMMOND, PRINTER, NEW YORK LIFE, THE INTERPRETER * * * * * CHAPTER I “To have what we want is riches; but to be able to do without it is power.” “BUT the extraordinary thing is that it has happened!” The lady who seemed a victim of this surprise lay back in her luxurious chair and exhibited a small foot on the fender. “Black velvet slippers,” said her companion critically, “on a brass fender are really, my dear, a poem. Where do you learn these things? Poor Muriel, her feet were always rather large!” “She had everything in her favor,” said Mrs. le Mentier, the first speaker. “Money, position, a face and figure one could do a good deal with. She was simply ruined by her earnestness. I have often said to her, ‘Well, Muriel, why don’t you take up the Church?’ But she never did; she said it was too comfortable and that it would crush her. I’m sure she’s not too comfortable now!” Mrs. Huntly rose and went to the window. It was raining dismally, with a constant reiterated drip, drip on the tiles. She turned back, shivering a little, to the cosey boudoir of her friend with whom she had just been lunching. “I often wonder,” she said thoughtfully, “if it wasn’t Jack Hurstly after all. You know I had them last summer with me; and though poor Muriel always managed things very well, there were times—— And then he went off suddenly, you know; and she said she couldn’t imagine what I could see in him, though I know for certain she bore with that brutal bull-terrier of his, and pretended to like it, while all the time she loathed animals—dogs especially.”