"I figger out that old Lawton continued to pay Madame Delano the income she'd been havin' both from Jim and her properties, out of his own pocket, until the city was rebuilt and he could settle the estate. He had to borrow the money to rebuild the houses Jim had put up on his wife's property, and when things got to a certain pass he wrote Madame D. to come along and take over her property. She'll be good and rich one of these days, when all the mortgages are paid off and Lawton paid back, but it was wise for her to stay on the job. Lawton is dead straight, but his partner is sowing wild oats in his old age--good old S.F. style, and I guess it ain't wise to tempt him too far. Get me?" "It's atrocious!" "Oh, not nearly so bad as it might be. Just think, if it had been Gabrielle, or Pauline-Marie, or even Mrs. Lawton. That's the worst kind of bad blood for a woman to inherit. Marie Garnett hung on like grim death to what the grand society you move in pretends to value most, and the Lord knows she'll never lose it now. "Nor need there be any scandal to drive your family to suicide. The thing to do is to hustle Madame Delano out of San Francisco. She'll go, all right, with you to look after her interests. She don't fancy being recognized and blackmailed, or I miss my guess. You may have to pay Bisbee something, but D. V.'s not that sort, and I don't think anybody else is on. If they've suspected they'll soon forget it when the old lady disappears from the Palace Hotel. Gee, but she has a nerve." "She is an old cynic. If she had any snobbery in her she'd be here to-night, rubbing elbows with the women who never knew of her existence twenty years ago, although their husbands did. It has satisfied her ironic French soul to sit in the court of the Palace Hotel day after day and defy San Francisco to recognize Marie Garnett in the obese Madame Delano, whose daughter is one of the great ladies of the city to whose underworld she once belonged, and from whose filthy profits she derives her income. Good God!" He sat forward and clutched his head, but Spaulding, who had drawn out his watch, tapped him on the shoulder. "Come on," he said. "Time's gettin' short. The stunt is to be pulled off just before supper." CHAPTER XII I They walked rapidly up the close avenue--planted far back in the Fifties by Ford Thornton's grandfather--the blaze of light at the end of the long perspective growing wider and wider. As they emerged they paused for a moment, dazzled by the scene.