We were seldom alone, for one thing. It was not unusual for Nora, bringing in my breakfast, to ask me if I could tell Mrs. Partridge, the housekeeper, who had spent the night there. Not only Tony’s friends. One of our most frequent visitors was Dwight Elliott, Maud’s attorney. He lived alone in town, and on hot evenings he often drove down to cool off, as he put it.

Sometimes I thought he was in love with her. He was a tall man in his fifties, not handsome but with considerable distinction of dress and manner. He was, it turned out, remotely related to her. Indeed, it was from him that I learned that Tony was not John Wainwright’s son.

“She ran away and married a worthless fellow when she was under twenty,” he said. “When he died things were pretty bad for her. She came back here where she was born, with Tony who was a youngster then; but I couldn’t help her. I’d just been admitted to the bar. It was all I could do to pay my office rent.”

It had been through him, however, that she met John Wainwright. He was somewhat complacent about it.

“J.C. took to her like a duck to water,” he said. “And I will say she made him happy. She’s a wonderful woman, Miss Abbott. They don’t make them like that any more.”

I rather liked him. He was only a few years older than Maud, and sometimes I wondered if she would eventually marry him. Certainly she depended on him. In any emergency her immediate reaction was to send for him. But he said something that night which surprised me. There had been a small dinner, and I was not needed. I was alone on the terrace, with Roger, the dog, at my feet. He came out, stating that he was dummy, and having lit a cigarette sat down beside me.

“There’s something you can do, Miss Abbott,” he said. “I don’t like to speak about it, but I shall have to. Maud Wainwright is spending too much money.”

“This place costs a lot to keep up, Mr. Elliott.”

“Well, old J.C.’s fortune was big, but not limitless. I happen to know that she gave Bessie a large sum, and—”

“Bessie?” I inquired.

But he was called back to the game just then, and I did not learn who Bessie was. I took for granted that she was a relative, one of the impecunious Wainwrights perhaps who hung on the fringes of society in town, and let it go at that. But I asked Maud the next day if we were not spending a lot, to see her more nearly impatient than ever before.

“Of course, I spend a lot,” she said. “I can’t turn the servants off, or the gardeners.”

“Nevertheless, we are spending a great deal of money,” I said stubbornly. “The butcher’s bill last month—”

“Don’t tell me,” she interrupted. “I suppose I could stop entertaining. I’m tired, and I don’t give a hoot about it anyhow. I like to see people happy, that’s all. But I’ve always given a lot to charity. Maybe I’m buying my way into heaven! What am I to do about that?”