This was early in the spring of 1912. In June the Thane
family went to the Berkshires, where they had rented a house for
the summer. Our client accompanied them. Prior to their departure,
Thane, senior, had settled out of court with the occupants of the
automobile with which his son's car had collided in upper Broadway.
His son was alone in his car when the accident occurred, but there
were a number of witnesses ready to testify that he was driving at
a high rate of speed, regardless of traffic or crossings. If my memory
serves me correctly, his father paid something like twenty-five
thousand dollars to the three persons injured. That, however,
is neither here nor there, except to illustrate the young man's
disregard for the law.
Miss Ritter had been on the case a very short time before he began
to make ardent love to her. She was an extremely pretty girl, two
years his senior, and, I am convinced, a most worthy and exemplary
young woman. She became infatuated with the young man. He asked
her to marry him. (Permit me to digress for a moment in order to
state that while Courtney Thane was in his freshman year at college
his father was obliged to pay out quite a large sum of money to a
chorus-girl with whom, it appears, he had become involved.) To make
a long story short, our client, trusting implicitly to his honour
and submitting to the ardour of their joint passion, anticipated
the marriage ceremony with serious results to herself.
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