She was stylishly dressed, and her figure, though making me wonder at the time (and strength) taken to produce it, was still quite pleasing to look upon in the final result. Her name, as I found out at the club that evening, was Madame Mabel Fortesque, and one of the evening papers stated that she was a young widow taking a western trip for her health. She had a suite at the Algonquin, and spent most of her time driving about the city, for she had sent to Denver for a showy turnout, and it was not long before it became a common sight to see her riding about with some one of the young officers from Fort Blair beside her. Dame Rumor, never inclined to be delicate in her handling of young widows who travel about the country without chaperons, of course had a fling at Madame Fortesque; and if only half the stories which were circulated about her were true, she must have found Preston City a lively place. The day of her arrival The Boy had been called away to Chicago on business, so the Colonel and I were relieved of any immediate worry as to an acquaintance being established between him and The Painted Lady, as nearly everyone in Preston City quickly came to call the widow. The Boy came back two weeks later, however, and our worst fears were then realized, for he immediately became as attentive to Madame Fortesque as any of the young subalterns from the fort. Most of the men at the club talked it over good-naturedly, and, man-fashion, considered it a good joke; but the wives of these same club men regarded it differently; it was even rumored that old Mrs. Burton, the worst gossip in the city, had written to a girl in Boston to whom The Boy was engaged. “If she were only some young thing and good-looking,” groaned the Colonel, “it wouldn’t be so bad; but what he can find in that fudged-up old woman is more than I can see. Why, man, she is old enough to be his mother.” He intended to speak to The Boy about it but never did, for he knew he could not talk to the young man when there was a woman in the case, the same as he could when it was merely a question of his gambling or drinking too much. Things were going on badly enough, when one evening as I was seated in the reading-room at the Sherwood, looking over a paper, I heard Stebbins talking to a group in the next room.