Page 90 (1/2)

The gay and fashionable crowd of which Audrey had been the center played

madly that winter The short six weeks of the season were already close

to an end By mid-January the south and California would have claimed

most of the women and some of the men There were a few, of course,

who saw the inevitable catastrophe: the Mackenzies had laid up their

house-boat on the west coast of Florida Denis Nolan had let his little

place at Pinehurst The advance wave of the war tide, the increased cost

of living, had sobered and reat businesses, and below aance ran riot

And Audrey Valentine's world missed her It refused to accept her

poverty as an excuse, and claain at a piano, soaret on the

s It wanted her cool

audacity It wanted her for week-end parties and bridge, and to canter

on frosty s on its best horses and ht ju chauffeurs, and drive its best cars at their best

speed

Audrey Valentine leading a cloistered life! Impossible! Selfish!

And Audrey was not cut out for solitude She did not e what had always been the fact