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 get for a thousand." But Dot was so frankly dazzled that for a second Maude was afraid that she had made it a little too strong. She grew easier as she saw Dot getting back to normal but decided not to tell Dot that her winter coat was costing thirty-five hundred dollars. Eighteen hundred would do nicely in this particular case.

"When are you going to get married?" Dot asked.

Maude threw her cigarette away and drew closer to Dot. Her voice sank to little more than a whisper as she said, "I have another offer. There's a man forty-two years old, a banker, who's simply wild about me. He has a hundred-thousand-dollar home and four Rolls Royces. He's divorcing his wife simply in the hope that I'll take him."

"Oh, Maude, you wouldn't marry an old man?" Dot asked, horrified.

Maude adopted the woman-to-woman attitude. "I don't know, Dot," she said. "To be perfectly frank with you, I'm not sure I wouldn't. What have I if I marry Ted, although I do adore him? Suppose he does have an income of, say, three or four hundred dollars a week. What's that, after all? It's nothing compared to what Mr. Shaw could give me."

"Shaw is his name?" Dot asked.

"Yes, George Bernard Shaw," said Maude. "Isn't that distinguished?" For a second she hung in dizzy suspense. The name had a too familiar ring. Suppose it was the name of a movie actor? But presently Maude breathed regularly again. There was no inkling of suspicion in Dot's expression. Maude smiled to herself. What if George Bernard Shaw was a movie actor? Dot was so darn dumb it wouldn't make any difference.