To Claudia's supreme delight, she discovered that her adopted virtue was quite an asset in society. It was so uncommon, so arresting to meet a girl who _really_ said what she meant, that it made quite a sensation, when found. People said to one another: "Have you heard Claudia's latest?" and hung upon her lips in delighted anticipation of shocks. And Claudia duly shocked them, and enjoyed the process. Openly, at the New Year's party, Claudia had confessed that the one overwhelming ambition of her heart was to be rich, and as there seemed only one way in which a helpless young woman could obtain a limitless command of money, had declared herself ready to marry the highest bidder in the market. "A German Jew stock-broker, or a Maharajah of `something-core,' or a soap-boiler bereft of h's. Anyone will do!" she had cried, "if he can only give me enough." And in a _tete-a-tete_ with a girl friend over her bedroom fire the same night, she had repeated and defended the same statement. "Ashamed?" she cried, "why should I be ashamed? I'm not a bit! How can I help my own nature? Most girls put love before everything else. Well, so do I; but it's love for _myself_. I love myself better than any stupid young man, and I mean to make myself happy. I couldn't be happy without money, therefore money I must have, and if I find a man who is ready and willing to give it to me, why on earth should I refuse?" The friend looked at the fair, delicately cut face with a pang of envy. "You are so lovely, Claudia; you'll find him fast enough, and he'll worship you, and think you a paragon of virtue. It _is_ unfair! A plain-looking girl who would have loved him back, and been amiable and devoted, would have no chance, whereas you will carry all before you. It _is_ unfair!" "Oh, I'll be quite sweet to him. I'll have to be, to keep him in a good temper. I'll be wickedly extravagant, you see, like all _nouveaux riches_, and I detest rows! Don't you worry about the man, dear. He'll be happy enough. So long as I get all I want, I'm quite easy to live with!" "No one gets all one wants in life, Claudia," said the friend tritely. "All the money in the world can't protect you from the troubles which enter every life!" "Perhaps not; but it can gild them! If I'm bound to have troubles, let me have them _de luxe_. A million or two can make anything picturesque. All the difference between sables and bombazine. Shouldn't I look sweet, Meriel, as a widow, with a Marie Stuart bonnet and a cloak of priceless sables? He might die, you know! You never can tell!" Then Meriel had arisen and swept scornfully from the room, and Claudia had laughed, and yawned, and gone to bed.