once. And now she was facing the crisis of her life because she could not anywhere in the world lay her hands upon five thousand dollars. Why, the trousseau she had bought in Paris for her expected marriage with Don Pablo Mendoza had cost three times that.
She could not go to the Hodges. She knew they had been running into a spell of rather straitened financial circumstances themselves, and, besides, even in their palmiest moments they would never have been able to produce five thousand dollars within an hour. Was there anybody within reach who could and would perform such a miracle for her?
And then she wondered why she had not thought of him before. Prince Rao-Singh. "If your creditors get pressing you too hard," had he not once said to her, "come to me." She had not liked the look in his face as he had said it, the expression that seemed to be cherishing the hope that some day she would be hard pressed and would have to go to him. And Dudley would never forgive her if he discovered she had appealed to the Hindu. But when one is desperate—
In her agitation she abandoned her breakfast and walked out into the flower garden in back of the house. The sturdy, squat-backed Italian whom she hired two days a week to take care of the grounds was weeding
