barrassed to be under a roof that his wife was paying for, although he resented this also. But the important thing was that Carmelita was changing, and he did not like it. He detected the influence of the fast crowd with which she was traveling. They were wasters most of them. Scandal seemed to be their chief diversion. And he had heard lately much talk of almost nightly visits to a society gambling resort called Canary Cottage, located nearby. "So-and-so made a killing in the Street last week and dropped it all at Canary Cottage the next night" or "No wonder the Stacey-Smiths have a new Pierce Arrow; look at the way they've been cleaning up at Canary Cottage lately" were samples of this kind of talk. Once or twice Carmelita and he had been invited to go along to this popular place and, with a quick glance at the person extending the invitation and then at him, she had hurriedly declined. Was there more in this than met the eye?
Yes, Carmelita was changing. She was once again the adorable, luxuriously gowned lady of wealth, it seemed, whom he had met and fallen in love with in Paris and once more in the gay world in which he had first met her. But she was yet somehow different. She seemed older, more determinedly gay, more sophisticated, and not quite happy. He had asked her if she
