Marie Belloc Lowndes

“ This was perhaps owing in a measure to the fact that there is, if one may so express it, a spice of naughtiness in life as led at Enghien. At home, neither as girl nor during her brief married life as the wife of a man much older than herself, had Mabel Blackett ever been allowed to be naughty. ”

“ That friend was a Danish lady, a certain Madame Olsen. The two, both young, both widowed, both possessed of ample means, had met in the Paris hotel where Mabel Blackett had been spending a lonely week, and the two had soon become friends. It was owing to Anna Olsen that Mabel Blackett had stayed on in France instead of going on to Switzerland.
For the first time the pretty young American woman was seeing life, and she found such seeing very pleasant. ”

“ Wachner when his 'systems' go wrong.”
“Yes—very,” answered the wife dryly. “But, bah! He at once sets himself to inventing another. I lose a great deal more at my petits chevaux playing with francs than Fritz does each season at baccarat playing with gold. You see, a 'system' has this good about it—one generally comes out even at the end of each month.”
“Does one indeed?”
But Mabel was not attending to what the other was saying. She was still absorbed in the thought of her friend, and of the mystery of that friend's sudden departure from Enghien. ”

“ But for long generations her forbears had been business people and amassing-money people, and Mrs. Blackett, after the first few days, had never been tempted to play for more than she knew she could afford to lose. ”

“ Anna Olsen had not even signed her name. The few lines were very clear, written in a large, decided handwriting—considerably larger, or so Mabel Blackett fancied, than Anna's ordinary hand. But then the American had not had the opportunity of seeing much of her Danish friend's caligraphy.
She was not given much time in which to study the letter, for Madame Malfait took it out of her hand before she had quite finished reading it over for the second time.
But Mabel Blackett was quite unused to being snubbed; pretty young women provided with plenty of money seldom are ”