There were young men who took her out to dinner or to supper or to dances. There were middle-aged men, fathers of families, whose hearts she fluttered with the promise of adventure never to be fulfilled, who escorted her to the less expensive places of popular amusement. There were, too, women who hovered everlastingly on that no-man’s-land between Suburbia and Mayfair, who courted her society and influence, under the mistaken impression that she had the entrée to the most select circles. _Mayfair Gossip_ was entirely the property of Anita Bellini, and it was an unprofitable concern, a fact Anita never failed to emphasize, when Greta called on a Friday for her weekly stipend, her only regular source of income. The princess was good to Greta in other ways. She gave her an occasional dinner, a discarded dress or two, marched her off to afternoon concerts, and employed her as a sort of unpaid secretary. Occasionally, windfalls came the way of Greta Gurden--fifty pounds here and there for some little service which she had rendered. And she had always a use for the money. There were new curtains to buy, a fascinating Chinese cabinet, or something that looked like a fascinating Chinese cabinet, a carved ivory Madonna--a fair copy of a master’s art. She had a passion for picking up entirely useless articles. Her dining room was cluttered up with imitation oak. Birmingham-made suits of chain armour, Benares brass from the same enterprising city, a gutted spinet that served only as a sideboard for the display of imitation Bristol ware. There was even a pair of antlers over the doorway, and Greta was not above suggesting to her awe-stricken visitors that the twelve-pointer had been shot by her when she was the guest of the Duke of Blank at his little hunting box in Inverness-shire. She enjoyed the services of one who was charlady in the morning and maid in the afternoon, and only to this unemotional lady was the real Greta ever revealed. Mrs. Gurden lay in bed with a bandaged leg. Torn between terror that memory brought and fear of blood-poisoning and its horrible consequences--among other duties she contributed the health notes to _Mayfair Gossip_--she was a difficult patient. Greta could not afford to neglect her daily duty to herself. Her face was indistinguishable under a mud pack, designed to preserve the face from the ravages of age, and her hands were inclosed in complexion gloves. Two dark eyes glared oddly from the mask of gray, and she spoke with some difficulty, due to the dried earth that plastered her cheeks. Just now she had an additional reason for annoyance. “Tell her I can’t see her and I won’t see her. Tell her to come back at twelve o’clock.” “She’s from Scotland Yard, ma’am.” “I don’t care; I won’t see her.” The obedient charlady disappeared into the outer room. Greta heard the murmur of voices, and after a while the woman came back. “She says she’ll wait till you’re ready. She wants to know how you hurt your leg.”