and maid; she would give them two weeks' notice that very day.
Carmelita walked into the library and sat down before the desk in which the sheaves of bills, mute witnesses of the past weeks of folly, were resting in an inner drawer. She spread them out upon the desk and took up her pad and pencil. The total surprised and disheartened her. It was even larger than she had feared and she had not taken into consideration the five thousand dollar I. O. U. to Hayden. Hayden—how long could she count upon the suave, hard-eyed manager of Canary Cottage to delay the final reckoning?
And that afternoon, as if in answer to her question, a squat figure of a man, double-chinned and paunchy and dressed somewhat too loudly, walked up the blue-stone path and confronted her where she was trying to read Vogue upon the piazza before she was hardly aware of his presence. It was Hayden. She glanced around hurriedly and reassured herself that no one else was in earshot. He bowed and apologized for his intrusion. He could be very obsequious when he wanted to be and when he believed it paid. But there was a little ominous gleam in his small eyes. She had owed him his bill for a long time and he had heard rumors of impending trouble between the Dudley Drakes and, though the very
