Alfred Munn invited her to every dance there was at the River Club that spring. People began to talk. Women, she told Effie, began to envy. She knew of at least a dozen who would give their eye-teeth if Alfred Munn would ask them to dance with him. He already was as good as a professional. He had asked her to be his partner in one of the new fancy dances last Saturday night. They had been the only two on the floor. Everybody else had sat around and stared, and applauded afterward! Oh, she was really managing to make quite a splash in Milhampton with Alfred Munn. At the Luncheon Club she belonged to, “the girls” had discussed little else last Friday. Rosamond was simply green with jealousy. Stella could tell she was, because she acted so cool and offish. Lots of people were “jollying” her about him. She got it from all sides. Even that nice old tabby-cat, Mrs. Palmer, had heard the talk. She had stopped her, on the street, one day, and given her a little motherly advice. Too bad nobody ever invited Ed to dinner, or to anything small or private. He would be so much more useful. She couldn’t see why they didn’t. But never mind, he was convenient just as he was, and oh, awfully kind! She was getting a little tired of him, she must confess. But then, she always did, when “the new” wore off, and “they got a little slushy.”

Effie wondered if there wasn’t danger of Stephen’s hearing about the splash Stella was making in Milhampton with Alfred Munn.

“Why, of course,” Stella exclaimed to that. “I want him to hear about it. I don’t intend to give Stephen the satisfaction of thinking I had to go into seclusion the minute he cleared out. He had an idea I couldn’t get along in this town without his telling me how to do it. He meant to use his importance to my position here as a kind of gun to point at me and make me do as he wants, when we get together again. Good gracious, having a good time, being successful all by myself, is the only gun I’ve got to point at him, my dear.”

But Stella was inexperienced in the use of fire-arms. Her gun exploded when she didn’t expect it to. And she herself became the victim.

4

IT’S POSSIBLE TO receive a bullet wound, even a fatal bullet wound, and be unaware of it, until you put your hand to the spot where it tingles a little. You’re surprised when your fingers come into contact with something warm and wet. You’re shocked when you draw them away, and find them red! Laurel was the messenger who brought the first sign of red to Stella’s horrified attention.