how surgeons maltreat poor cats and dogs, and she would insist on
telling me all about it. It was the most shocking dinner-table
conversation imaginable."

"She certainly is a magnificent-looking creature," said Lucy, after
a pause. "I don't wonder the men fall in love with her. She had her
hair done up with some kind of a band across the front, and I
declare she might have been an Egyptian princess."

"She has many roles," said Montague.

"Is it really true," asked the other, "that she paid fifty thousand
dollars for a bath-tub?"

"She says she did," he answered. "The newspapers say it, too, so I
suppose it is true. I know Duval told me with his own lips that she
cost him a million dollars a year; but then that may have been
because he was angry."

"Is he so rich as all that?" asked Lucy.

"I don't know how rich he is personally," said Montague. "I know he
is one of the most powerful men in New York. They call him the
'System's' banker."

"I have heard Mr. Ryder speak of him," said she.

"Not very favourably, I imagine," said he, with a smile.

"No," said she, "they had some kind of a quarrel. What was the