It was a silent ride, for the besotted young millionaire slept, and Jim dared not trust himself to speak.  Lorelei closed her eyes, nauseated, disillusioned, miserable, seeing more clearly than ever the depths into which she had unwittingly sunk, and the infamy into which Jim had descended.  Nor was the change, she reflected, confined to them alone.  Upon the other members of the family the city had stamped its mark just as plainly.  She recalled the ideals, the indefinite but glorious dreams of advancement that she had cherished upon leaving Vale, and realized with a shock how steadily she had degenerated.  Where was her girlhood?  Where was that self-respect, that purity of impulse and thought that all men recognize as precious?  Gradually, bit by bit, they had slipped away.  Wisdom had come in their place; knowledge was hers, but faith had rotted.  Time was when the sight of a drunken man filled her with terror; now the one beside her scarcely awakened disgust.  Bad women had seemed unreal—­phantoms of another world.  Now she brushed shoulders with them daily, and her own maidenhood was soiled by the contact.  She was a girl only in name; in reality she was a woman of the streets, or so she viewed herself in the bitterness of this hour.

At his hotel Wharton roused himself, and Lorelei sent him reeling into the vestibule.  Then she and Jim turned homeward through the deserted streets.

CHAPTER XI

During the last act of the matinee on the day following Lorelei was surprised to receive a call from John Merkle.  “The Judge” led him to her dressing-room, then shuffled away, leaving him alone with her and Mrs. Croft.

“I hope I haven’t broken any rules by dropping in during your office hours,” he began.

“Theatrical rules are made to be broken; but I do think you are indiscreet.  Don’t you?”

The banker had been using his eyes with an interest that betrayed his unfamiliarity with these surroundings.  “I was on my way up-town and preferred not to telephone.”  He looked meaningly at Croft; and Lorelei, interpreting his glance, sent the dresser from the room on some errand.  “Well, the game worked,” said Merkle.  “Mrs. Hammon has left home and commenced suit for divorce.  If our friend Miss Lynn had set out to ruin Jarvis socially—­and perhaps financially—­she couldn’t have played her cards better.”

“Is that what you came to tell me?”

Merkle hesitated.  “No,” he admitted, “it isn’t; but I’m a bit embarrassed now that I’m here.  I suppose your mother told about seeing me?”

“My mother?” Lorelei’s amazement was convincing, and his keen eyes softened.  “When did you see mother?  Where?”

“Yesterday, at my office.  Didn’t you know that she and your brother had called?”

Lorelei shook her head; she felt sick with dread of his next words.

“It was very—­unpleasant, I fear, for all of us.”