And then came the further
items that marked her as one that could not be taken up. Perhaps a
summary of these may be conveyed when I say that she had long been
known as Klondike Kate. She had some years before, it seemed, been a
dancing person in the far Alaska north and had there married the
proprietor of one of the resorts in which she disported herself--a man
who had accumulated a very sizable fortune in his public house and who
was shot to death by one of his patrons who had alleged unfairness in
a game of chance. The widow had then purchased a townhouse in Red Gap
and had quickly gathered about her what was known as the Bohemian set,
the county families, of course, refusing to know her.
After that first brief study of her I could more easily account for
the undercurrents of bitterness I had felt in Red Gap society. She
would be, I saw, a dangerous woman in any situation where she was
opposed; there was that about her--a sort of daring disregard of the
established social order. I was not surprised to learn that the men of
the community strongly favoured her, especially the younger dancing
set who were not restrained by domestic considerations. Small wonder
then that the women of the "old noblesse," as I may call them, were
outspokenly bitter in their comments upon her.
Pages:
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194