Page:Frank Owen - Woman Without Love (1949 reprint).djvu/89

 widow, she explained, but she did not bother saying that she was the widow of an army.

On one or two occasions she filed charges against those who had previously filed charges against her. She charged defamation of character and malicious mischief. Madame gave much to charitable enterprises. It was quite easy to prove her sterling character. At least she proved it to be sterling even though it was only plated and rather thinly at that.

When her enemies found that she struck back, and that the courts seemed to sway in her favor they ceased to annoy her. After all she kept her establishment in good repair and the garden about her house was a model of neatness.

She employed an aged gardener, a man whom she had saved from being a charge of the state. In his eyes she was a saint. In her eyes he was a most excellent character reference. With his snow white hair he gave an air of quiet charm to the establishment.

Old Marlow knew nothing of what went on in the house. He dwelt in a tiny shack at the end of the garden. In his simple faith he imagined that Madame Leota was really mistress of a refined boarding-house. He could not have been more proud of her if she had been the first lady of the land. She smiled a trifle wistfully sometimes when Old Marlow addressed her so reverently.

"When I die," she told him, "I think Hl have you quietly murdered so that you can intercede for me with the great forces that guide our future destinies. I'm afraid I'll never be able to get a good aisle seat if I go alone."

Sometimes on summer afternoons Madame rode through the streets of the city in an open barouche bland, smiling, dashingly dressed, though slightly over-painted. She had hosts of friends and many a man in the respected walks of life nodded to her surreptitiously.

Madame was a great lover of good manners. If a man would not acknowledge her on the street, she would not acknowledge him in her house. She would refuse him admittance and because the girls were so slim and graceful, so well-educated and refined, few there were who cared to be banished. They