"It would not do him the least harm in the world," said Montague. "I
can speak quite positively there, for I have seen it tried. You
couldn't get a newspaper in New York to publish that story. All that
you could do would be to have yourself blazoned as an adventuress."

Lucy was staring, with clenched hands. "Why, I might as well be
living in Turkey," she cried.

"Very nearly," said he. "There's an old man in this town who has
spent his lifetime lending money and hoarding it; he has something
like eighty or a hundred millions now, I believe, and once every six
months or so you will read in the newspapers that some woman has
made an attempt to blackmail him. That is because he does to every
pretty girl who comes into his office just exactly what old Waterman
did to you; and those who are arrested for blackmail are simply the
ones who are so unwise as to make a disturbance."

"You see, Lucy," continued Montague, after a pause, "you must
realise the situation. This man is a god in New York. He controls
all the avenues of wealth; he can make or break any person he
chooses. It is really the truth--I believe he could ruin any man in
the city whom he chose to set out after. He can have anything that
he wants done, so far as the police are concerned. It is simply a
matter of paying them. And he is accustomed to rule in everything;
his lightest whim is law. If he wants a thing, he buys it, and that
is his attitude toward women. He is used to being treated as a
master; women seek him, and vie for his favour. If you had been able
to hold it, you might have had a million-dollar palace on Riverside
Drive, or a cottage with a million-dollar pier at Newport. You might