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Updated: May 10, 2025
Doran-Reeves rather come and have tea with her one day, any day, at the Plaza Hotel? But the last thing that appealed to Josephine was the thought of a cozy chat about "that darling boy" Max. Besides, the moment was a bad one with her. Captain de la Tour had got long leave and come to America, she did not know why at first, and had been inclined to feel rather flattered, if slightly frightened.
The powder train was unwittingly laid months before by Josephine Doran-Reeves, as she preferred to call herself after her marriage with the son of the Dorans' lawyer. Neither she nor Grant who had taken the name of Doran-Reeves also liked to think or talk of the man who had disappeared.
"Oh, of course, you do know a lot of the men, but they're worse than no use to you now. It must be a woman, 'way high up at the top." Billie racked her brains, and thought of Josephine Doran-Reeves. Josephine was "way up at the top," because she was a Doran and very rich, and so queer that she amused the most bored people, whether she meant to or not.
Max was too young, and had been too much away from New York, to be greatly missed there, despite Rose Doran's popularity; and when such an interesting and handsome couple as Grant and Josephine Doran-Reeves began entertaining gorgeously in the renovated Doran house, the ex-lieutenant of cavalry was forgotten comparatively soon.
Doran-Reeves was insane as well as deformed; but that "cut no ice," as Jeff Houston remarked, and when the snapshot of Max St. George, deserter from the Foreign Legion, appeared with the newspaper story of Sanda Stanton, Billie did what Jeff described as "falling over herself" to get to the office of Town Tales.
Nobody dreamed that the money Mr. and Mrs. Grant Doran-Reeves spent in such charming ways had once belonged to Max. He was supposed to have "come a cropper" somehow, as so many young men did, and to have disappeared with everything he had, out of the country, for his country's good.
But soon she found out. He had come to blackmail her. There were some silly letters she had written when they were in the thick of their flirtation at Sidi-bel-Abbés, and the height of her ambition had been to marry a French officer, no matter how poor. Captain de la Tour had kept those letters. He did not threaten to show them to Grant Doran-Reeves.
Suddenly, however, she remembered that they two had been dear, dear friends perfectly platonic friends, of course and she felt justified in writing a sweet letter to Josephine asking tactfully for news of Max. She put her point charmingly, and begged that she might be allowed to call on dear Mrs. Doran-Reeves, to chat cozily about "that darling boy," or would Mrs.
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