blushed, for lying came hardly. As calling was a serious business in
San Francisco, she compromised by the ancient clearing-house device
of an occasional large "At Home," besides her usual dinners and
luncheons. When Masters was a dinner guest he paid her only the
polite attentions due a hostess and flirted elaborately with the
prettiest of the women. Madeleine, who was unconscious of the gossip,
was sometimes a little hurt, and when he avoided her at other
functions and was far too attentive to Sally Ballinger, or Annette
McLane, a beautiful girl just out, she had an odd palpitation and
wondered what ailed her. Jealous? Well, perhaps. Friends of the same
sex were often jealous. Had not Sally been jealous at one time of
poor Sibyl Geary? And Masters was the most complete friend a woman
ever had. She thought sadly that perhaps he had enough of her in the
afternoon and welcomed a change. Well, that was natural enough. She
found herself enjoying the society of other bright men at dinners,
now that life was fair again.

Nevertheless, she experienced a sensation of fright now and again,
and not because she feared to lose him.




XV


There is nothing so carking as the pangs of unsatisfied curiosity.
They may not cause the acute distress of love and hate, but no tooth
ever ached more incessantly nor more insistently demanded relief.
That doughty warrior, Mrs. Abbott, in her own homely language