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 "About me?" Victoria shrugged her shoulders. "People must talk about some one. I haven't been home long, so naturally they take it out on me—I'm new. What do they say? that I drink absinthe by the quart, or dance the latest Parisian danse eccentrique on the studio roof? I'm prepared for anything."

"Indeed you are not! Heavens! do you suppose I'd care for any such trifle as that? A slander of that sort is only a bored and unoccupied society's way of paying a compliment, and I tell you— Well, I might as well blurt it out. They are saying you were mixed up in an abominably disgraceful love-affair in Paris!"

Victoria sprang to her feet and stood bristling and defiant. "Who says such a thing?" she demanded. "And," continued Mrs. Durham, hotly, ignoring the question, "I am told that out of revenge and jealousy you have endeavored to ruin the man's character by bringing terrible and unfounded accusations against him!"

"You're crazy!" Victoria interposed.

"Nothing of the sort." 194