"Mrs. Flippin." "It is all--rot----" "It isn't rot, Georgie. Mrs. Flippin knows about it. Becky inherits from her Meredith grandmother. And her grandfather is Admiral Meredith of Nantucket, with a big house on Beacon Street in Boston. And they all belong to the inner circle." He stared at her. "But Becky doesn't look it. She doesn't wear rings and things." "'Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes'? Oh, George, did you think it had to be like that when people had money? Why, her pearls belonged to a queen." She told him their history. It came back to him with a shock that he had said to Becky that the pearls cheapened her. "If they were _real_," he had said. "It was rather strange the way I found it out," Madge was saying. "Mary Flippin had on the most perfect gown--with all the marks on it of exclusive Fifth Avenue. She was going to the Merriweather ball, and Becky is to be there." She saw him gather himself together. "It is rather a Cinderella story, isn't it?" he asked, with assumed lightness. "Yes," she said, "but I thought you'd like to know." "What if I knew already?" She laughed and let it go at that. "I'm lonesome, Georgie, talk to me," she said. But he was not in a mood to talk. And at last she sent him away. And when he had gone she sat there a long time and thought about him. There had been a look in his eyes which made her almost sorry. It seemed incredible as she came to think of it that anybody should ever be sorry for Georgie. II Since that night with Becky in the garden at Huntersfield George had been torn by conflicting emotions. He knew himself at last in love. He knew himself beaten at the game by a little shabby girl, and a lanky youth who had been her champion. He would not acknowledge that the thing was ended, and in the end he had written her a letter. He cried to Heaven that a marriage between her and young Paine would be a crime. "How can you love him, Becky--you are mine." The letter had been returned unopened. His burning phrases might have been dead ashes for all the good they had done. She had not read them. And now Madge had told him the unbelievable thing--that Becky Bannister, the shabby Becky of the simple cottons and the stubbed shoes, was rich, not as Waterman was rich, flamboyantly, vulgarly, with an eye to letting all the world know. But rich in a thoroughbred fashion, scorning display--he knew the kind, secure in a knowledge of the unassailable assets of birth and breeding and solid financial standing. No wonder young Paine wanted to marry her. George, driving through the night, set his teeth. He was seeing Randy, poor as Job's turkey, with Becky's money for a background. Well, he should not have it. He should not have Becky. George headed his car for the Merriweathers'. Becky was there, and he was going to see Becky. How he was to see her he left to the inspiration of the moment.