Page:The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg (1928).djvu/308

 ten she appeared for work. She lasted one week, and then two and then three, tasting for the first time the sweets of a woman's economic independence. She muddled the mass of notes and papers hopelessly so that Mr. Winnery was unable to find anything he wanted, whereas before he had been able to find at least a few things. But it did not seem to annoy Mr. Winnery and at the beginning of the fourth week he asked Miss Fosdick quite suddenly to marry him and quite suddenly she accepted.

It was agreed that they were to go to Iowa on their honeymoon because Mr. Winnery had a desire to see America and Mrs. Winnery wanted to revisit Winnebago Falls. Not the least of her motives was a desire to exhibit her rich and distinguished husband. As a kind of second thought Mr. Winnery said that it would give him an opportunity to go into the very beginnings of the strange case of Miss Annie Spragg.

A week before Mr. Winnery paid Signora Bardelli the only visit he ever made her, the Principessa gave in Venice the famous fête which each year marked the peak of the season. It attained a new measure of splendor and magnificence and attracted the fashionable and the notorious from every part of Europe. Millionaires, decayed royaltry, gigoloes, actresses, demi-mondaines; even two ministers of state enjoying pompous holidays were present. It went off in a blaze of triumph with Bengal lights and