Much more Mercedes had talked, in snatches and fragments. There
seemed no great country nor city of the old world or the new in
which she had not been. She had even been in Klondike, ten years
before, in a half-dozen flashing sentences picturing the
fur-clad, be-moccasined miners sowing the barroom floors with
thousands of dollars' worth of gold dust. Always, so it seemed to
Saxon, Mrs. Higgins had been with men to whom money was as water.



CHAPTER III

Saxon, brooding over her problem of retaining Billy's love, of
never staling the freshness of their feeling for each other and
of never descending from the heights which at present they were
treading, felt herself impelled toward Mrs. Higgins. SHE knew;
surely she must know. Had she not hinted knowledge beyond
ordinary women's knowledge?

Several weeks went by, during which Saxon was often with her. But
Mrs. Higgins talked of all other matters, taught Saxon the making
of certain simple laces, and instructed her in the arts of
washing and of marketing. And then, one afternoon, Saxon found
Mrs. Higgins more voluble than usual, with words, clean-uttered,
that rippled and tripped in their haste to escape. Her eyes were
flaming. So flamed her face. Her words were flames. There was a
smell of liquor in the air and Saxon knew that the old woman had
been drinking. Nervous and frightened, at the same time
fascinated, Saxon hemstitched a linen handkerchief intended for