She had to pay for everything, down to her share of the wine-bills and the horses' fodder, down to Bertie Hammond Synge's fare in the "underground" when he went to the City for her.

She had been left with just money enough to turn her head; and it hadn't even been put in trust, nothing prudent or proper had been done with it.

She could spend her capital, and at the rate she was going, expensive, extravagant and with a swarm of parasites to help, it certainly wouldn't last very long.
"Couldn't _you_ perhaps take her, independent, unencumbered as you are ?" I asked of Mrs.Meldrum.

"You're probably, with one exception, the sanest person she knows, and you at least wouldn't scandalously fleece her." "How do you know what I wouldn't do ?" my humorous friend demanded.

"Of course I've thought how I can help her--it has kept me awake at night.
But doing it's impossible; she'll take nothing from me.