"Oh, my poor girl!" was all she said; and Mary, believing that Trudy so reverenced her secret that she was not going to stab it with clumsy words, kissed her and very practically set about getting a lunch. Trudy went home taking some biscuit and half a cake with her, and by the time she reached the Touraine she was in a cheerful frame of mind once more. The relief of confession, the home food, and the knowledge of Mary's secret had buoyed her up past caring for or considering Gay. To her surprise Gay was at home, jubilant and repentant. He had won at pool and had also consumed some 1879 Burgundy, which conspired to make him adore his red-haired wife and tell her that he had quite deserved and enjoyed having his face smacked. The pool money in her safe keeping, visions of a new hat to wear at the next luncheon caused Trudy to equal his elation. Together they ate up Mary's biscuits and cake and talked about Beatrice's remodelling the Constantine mansion at the cost of many thousands. "We could almost retire," Trudy suggested; "but I'm afraid Steve will never give his consent." "Don't worry. Bea would never let a little thing like a husband stand in the way of her progress." In March, just as Steve was returning, Beatrice and her aunt departed for a whirl in Florida, with a laconic invitation that Steve and his father-in-law follow them. Steve declined the invitation with alarming curtness. Though Constantine worried in his peculiar way because Steve did not rush down to Florida to play with the rest of the snapping turtles Beatrice had about her heels he did not succeed in getting anything but a logical explanation as to a business rush from his son-in-law. More and more Steve was being saddled with Constantine's end of the game as well as his own--and he did not know how to proceed with the double responsibility. So Constantine went to Florida alone, to find his daughter revelling in new frocks and flirtations, both of which she temporarily sidetracked while she made her father give his consent to having the house done over after the manner of a Frascati villa. "Gad," commented her father, during the heat of the argument, "I thought you were pretty well off as you were. Will Steve like it?" "He doesn't care what I do," she hastened to assure him. "Of course he will--he ought to--I'm paying for it. He'll have as wonderful a home as there is in the United States. Alice's will be a caricature by contrast. Gay says so. As soon as we go home I'm going to signal them to begin." "Well, don't touch my room or I'll burn down the whole plant," her father warned. "And if I were you I'd tell Steve first--it's only right." "But it's my money," she insisted. "Yes, yes, I know--but you could pretend to consult him. Your mother and I never bought a toothpick that we hadn't agreed on beforehand." "Dear old papa." She kissed him graciously by way of dismissal.