You'll be asked about
your business in New York, your income and expenses, your family and your
father's means. It will be a turning inside out of your most intimate
affairs."
"Why, I should expect all that," I said.
"But, Nelly--" he hesitated. "You're alone here?"
He had not before alluded to Mrs. Whitney, though I suppose he understood
that she had gone; I appreciated his delicacy.
"I'm afraid you'll be asked about that," he went on; "asked, I mean, how a
young woman without money maintains a fine apartment. They'll inquire
about your servants, the daily expenses of your table, your wine bills, if
you ever have any; then they'll question you about your visitors, their
character and number, and try to wring admissions from you, and to give
sinister shades to innocent relations. The reporters will all be there, a
swarm of them. You're a semi-public character, more's the pity, and some
lawyers like to be known for their severity to debtors. What a field day
for the press! The beautiful Miss Winship in supplementary proceedings--
columns of testimony, pages of pictures--! Ugh! In a word, the experience
is so severe that you cannot undergo it.
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