The Moneychangers | Page 2

the role of an Oriental princess or a Queen of the Night.
Her mother had died when she was very young, and she had grown up
with only her father for a companion. Judge Dupree was one of the rich
men of the neighbourhood, and he lavished everything upon his
daughter; but people had said that Lucy would suffer for the lack of a
woman's care, and the prophecy had been tragically fulfilled. There had
come a man, much older than herself, but with a glamour of romance
about him; and the wonder of love had suddenly revealed itself to Lucy,
and swept her away as no emotion had ever done before.
One day she disappeared, and Montague had never seen her again. He
knew that she had gone to New Orleans to live, and he heard rumours
that she was very unhappy, that her husband was a spendthrift and a
rake. Scarcely a year after her marriage Montague heard the story of his
death by an accident while driving.
He had heard no more until a short time after his coming to New York,
when the home papers had reported the death of Judge Dupree. And
then a week or so ago had come a letter from Lucy, to his brother,
Oliver Montague, saying that she was coming to New York, perhaps to
live permanently, and asking him to meet her and to engage
accommodations for her in some hotel.
Montague wondered what she would be like when he saw her again. He
wondered what five years of suffering and experience would have done
for her; whether it would have weakened her enthusiasm and dried up
her springs of joy. Lucy grown serious was something that was difficult
for him to imagine.
And then again would come a mood of doubt, when he distrusted the
thrill which the memory of her brought. Would she be able to maintain
her spell in competition with what life had brought him since?
His revery was broken by Oliver, who came in to ask him if he wished
to go to meet her. "Those Southern trains are always several hours
late," he said. "I told my man to go over and 'phone me."
"You are to have her in charge," said Montague; "you had better see her
first. Tell her I will come in the evening." And so he went to the great

apartment hotel--the same to which Oliver had originally introduced
him. And there was Lucy.
She was just the same. He could see it in an instant; there was the same
joyfulness, the same eagerness; there was the same beauty, which had
made men's hearts leap up. There was not a line of care upon her
features--she was like a perfect flower come to its fulness.
She came to him with both her hands outstretched. "Allan!" she cried,
"Allan! I am so glad to see you!" And she caught his hands in hers and
stood and gazed at him. "My, how big you have grown, and how
serious! Isn't he splendid, Ollie?"
Oliver stood by, watching. He smiled drily. "He is a trifle too epic for
me," he said.
"Oh, my, how wonderful it seems to see you!" she exclaimed. "It
makes me think of fifty things at once. We must sit down and have a
long talk. It will take me all night to ask you all the questions I have
to."
Lucy was in mourning for her father, but she had contrived to make her
costume serve as a frame for her beauty. She seemed like a flaming
ruby against a background of black velvet. "Tell me how you have
been," she rushed on. "And what has happened to you up here? How is
your mother?"
"Just the same," said Montague; "she wants you to come around
to-morrow morning."
"I will," said Lucy,--"the first thing, before I go anywhere. And
Mammy Lucy! How is Mammy Lucy?"
"She is well," he replied. "She's beside herself to see you."
"Tell her I am coming!" said she. "I would rather see Mammy Lucy
than the Brooklyn Bridge!"
She led him to a seat, placed herself opposite him, devouring him with
her eyes. "It makes me seem like a girl again to see you," she said.
"Do you count yourself aged?" asked Montague, laughing.
"Oh, I feel old," said Lucy, with a sudden look of fear,--"you have no
idea, Allan. But I don't want anybody to know about it!" And then she
cried, eagerly, "Do you remember the swing in the orchard? And do
you remember the pool where the big alligator lived? And the
persimmons? And Old Joe?"
Allan Montague remembered all these things; in the course of the half

hour that followed he remembered pretty nearly all the exciting
adventures which he and