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her feet.
    The Colonel’s face was tinged with blue, like the skin of a ripe plum, and for a moment I thought he might be having a stroke. He lifted a quivering finger and pointed at the door.
    â€œGet out,” he said in a strange, hollow voice. “Pemberton will send your things.”
    Ellis shook his head in confusion. “What do you mean? To where?”
    The Colonel turned his back to us, resting one elbow on the mantel, posing.
    â€œTo where?” Ellis asked with increasing desperation. “Where are we supposed to go?”
    The Colonel’s stiff back and complete lack of response made it clear that wherever we went, it was of no concern to him.

Chapter Four
    E llis directed the chauffeur to the Society Hill Hotel on Chestnut Street. On the surface it looked fine: the façade and public areas were up to par, but our suite was faded and shabby and had only one bedroom. However, it was what we could afford on Ellis’s reduced allowance.
    Ellis bought a bottle of whiskey from the lobby bar while the clerk was checking us in and began downing it as soon as we got upstairs.
    I understood his desperation. If the Colonel cut his allowance completely, we’d be destitute. Regrettably, it was a very real possibility.
    Ellis’s crime against his father was twofold, and the parts were equally grievous. He had been caught railing against the Colonel behind his back, and then had accused him of fraud to his face. I didn’t think the Colonel was capable of forgiving either separately, but together they were exponentially worse.
    As we waited for our things to arrive, Ellis paced and drank, analyzing and reanalyzing what had just happened and generally working himself into a lather. At one point, when he allowed as to how hewouldn’t have lost his temper if he hadn’t been driven to defend me, I thought he was unfairly trying to shift the blame to me and said so, pointing out that I hadn’t uttered a word throughout the entire fiasco.
    He stopped and looked at me, both pained and surprised.
    â€œMy God,” he said. “That’s not what I meant at all. Of course it’s not your fault. You did absolutely nothing. Her attack on you was completely gratuitous.”
    â€œIt’s all right,” I said. “She didn’t say anything everyone else wasn’t already thinking.”
    â€œIt’s not all right, and I will never forgive her. Neither should you.”
    I hoped he would change his mind, because his mother was currently our only hope of returning to grace. Although she demonstrated her affection in strange ways, her whole world revolved around Ellis and, to a lesser degree, in torturing me. Without us, her life would be a void. I was entirely sure that she was already attempting to intercede, but I’d never seen the Colonel in such a state and I wasn’t sanguine about her chances.
    Appealing to my own father was pointless. When I wrote to tell him that Ellis and I had eloped, I’d expected him to be upset and wasn’t surprised when he didn’t respond right away. It was months before it dawned on me that he wasn’t going to. I’d seen him only once since, although we lived less than two miles apart. He was crossing the street, and when he saw me, he pretended he hadn’t and turned the other way. From overheard fragments of conversation, I gathered his activities revolved almost exclusively around the Corinthian Yacht Club, allowing him to avoid contact with the fairer sex altogether.
    At some point after midnight, I managed to convince Ellis that our things weren’t on their way and we should just go to bed. Neither of us had so much as an overnight bag.
    While the room was stuffy, it was also drafty. Ellis called me a “blanket hog,” accusing me of repeatedly rolling away with the covers, at which point he’d grab them back and leave me exposed. Aftera few rounds of tug-of-war, which started out in