“But, my dear girl,” she finally explained, “your Gunnie has no more claim on that car of mine than he has on me.” “Well, he thinks he has. And he’s so sure of it he’s even been advertisin’ that you know he has. And I’ve been goin’ with Gunnie long enough to realize that that boy never told a lie in his life.” This declaration of faith in Gunboat Dorgan was followed by a moment or two of unbroken silence. “Ruby,” finally called out the bewildered girl at the telephone, “I want you to come here. I want to see you. I _must_ see you at once.” “From the way things are breakin’,” clearly and coldly announced the lady on the other end of the wire, “I don’t think it’s me you want to see. You’d better do your talkin’ to my lawyer!” “Ruby!” called the girl at the desk. But the wire brought no answer to that repeated call, and Teddie hung up the receiver. She placed it slowly and carefully on its hook and sat staring at the cadmium tinted wall, with a look of helpless protest on her bewildered young face. And for the second time she found herself face to face with a forlorn and seemingly fruitless survey of her resources. Once or twice, in her desperation, she was even tempted to pack up and scurry off to Hot Springs in the wake of her Uncle Chandler. But that, she remembered, would be more than cowardly. It would be foolish, for it would be nothing more than a momentary evasion of the inevitable. And besides being a sacrifice of dignity, it would stand as an advertisement of guilt. Then out of a world that seemed as cold and empty as a glacial moraine came one faint glow of hope. On the gray sky-line of a Sahara of uncertainties appeared a tremulous palm-frond or two. For Teddie, in her misery, had suddenly taken thought of Gerald Rhindelander West. Gerry, she remembered with a gulp, was not only one of her own set, but also a corporation lawyer. It wouldn’t be easy to explain things to Gerry. It would, in fact, involve sacrifices of pride which made her wince without knowing it. But she had talked about having an attorney. And it was her duty to find one. CHAPTER NINE When Teddie made ready for her conference with Gerald Rhindelander West she did so with a particularity which might have surprised both her recently abandoned maid and the immediate members of her own family. She went forth to the _terra incognita_ of Nassau Street cuirassed in tailored and braided trimness and gauntleted in spotless kid with just the right array of wrinkles about her glove-tops. She was still further entrenched behind a four-skin scarf of blue-fox—which wasn’t blue at all—and a canteen muff to match, to say nothing of seven cyanitic-looking orchids which completed the color-scheme and fluttered demurely above her slightly fluttering heart.