“You mean he won’t believe it!”

Ethel went on laughing.  Joe wouldn’t believe it.  She wished he would come and turn this woman out on the street.  She felt relief unspeakable.

“You’ve forgotten,” Fanny added, “that you lied to him about your friend.”

“How dare you say that?”

“Because I have the facts.  On the second of December Joe brought Dwight to dine with you, and you acted as though you’d never met.  I gathered that from Joe himself when I saw him the next day.  While the truth of it was you’d been seeing Dwight ever since the first of October.”

“Yes?  That will be easy enough to explain.”  But Ethel felt herself turning white.  She sank down and thought, “Now you’ll need all your nerve.  Don’t get faint, you’ve got to think clearly.”  But she was not given time.

“And all that had been going on while you were supposed to be home with the baby.”  Mrs. Carr leaned forward briskly.  “Now the thing for you to do is exactly what I tell you.  But before I do that, there’s just one thing I wish you to understand about me.  If you want to keep Joe, keep him.  I don’t want him—­I never did.  I’ve laughed at you again and again for what you thought I was trying to do.  All I want is to be let alone to go on with Joe as I always have.  What I mean by that you won’t understand, because you don’t understand my life.  A woman like me in this city needs one man who’ll be her friend—­the big brother idea—­to help and advise her, carry her through when she’s down a bit.  And Joe has always been like that.

“Why?  Because of Amy.  When she first came to New York, you remember, it was on a visit to me.  I had known her back in boarding school.  Well, the visit lengthened out.  I saw how crazy she was for the town, and I was fairly well off then, so I let her stay and gave her a home—­let her meet my friends, Joe included.  I had a husband at the time who was in the real estate business.  He knew Joe.  So I took Joe and handed him over to Amy.  And though she would have been glad enough to forget the debt, Joe wasn’t that kind.  So that’s my hold on him—­perfectly clean and above-board.  And I need him in my business.  There are times when I’m down and need his money, other times when I need his name.  But that is all.  And if he has been fool enough to marry a giddy young girl like you, that’s his own look-out—­I won’t interfere.  I mean I won’t interfere with you so long as you don’t interfere with me.  You let me go on with Joe as before, and he’ll never see these papers.”

With a sudden fierce impulse, in spite of herself, Ethel crumpled them up in her hands.

“Don’t be a fool,” said Fanny.  “They’re only copies.  Give them back.”  Ethel did so, mechanically.  “Now what will you do?  Which way will you have it?  He may be here any minute now.”

She waited, but got no reply.  She saw the girl shiver a little.

“What’s the use of being so solemn and scared?” she impatiently asked.  “You’re running no more risk than before.  So far as I’m concerned, my dear, you can go right on with Dwight if you wish.  All I’m asking is a square deal.”