Prothero pressed his hand and kept it while she said: "It is
like Marie Louise to bring youth to cheer up an old crone like me."

Davidge muffed the opening horribly. Instead of saying something
brilliant about how young Mrs. Prothero looked, he said:

"Youth? I'm a hundred years old."

"You are!" Mrs. Prothero cried. "Then how old does that make me, in
the Lord's name--a million?"

Davidge could not even recover the foot he had put in it. By looking
foolish and keeping silent he barely saved himself from adding the
other foot. Mrs. Prothero smiled at his discomfiture.

"Don't worry. I'm too ancient to be caught by pretty speeches--or to
like the men who have 'em always ready."

She pressed his hand again and turned to welcome the financial
Cyclops, James Dyckman, and his huge wife, and Captain Fargeton, a
foreign military attache with service chevrons and wound-chevrons and
a _croix de guerre_, and a wife, who had been Mildred Tait.

"All that and an American spouse!" said Davidge to Marie Louise.

"Have you never had an American spouse?" she asked, brazenly.

"Not one!" he confessed.

Major and Polly Widdicombe had come in with Marie Louise, and Davidge
drifted into their circle. The great room filled gradually with men of
past or future fame, and the poor women who were concerned in enduring
its acquisition.

Marie Louise was radiant in mood and queenly in attire. Davidge was
startled by the magnificence of her jewelry. Some of it was of old
workmanship, royal heirloomry. Her accent was decidedly English, yet
her race was undoubtedly American. The many things about her that had
puzzled him subconsciously began to clamor at least for the attention
of curiosity. He watched her making the best of herself, as a skilful
woman does when she is all dressed up in handsome scenery among
toplofty people.

Polly was describing the guests as they came in:

"That's Colonel Harvey Forbes. His name has been sent to Congress for
approval as a brigadier-general. I knew him in the midst of the
wildest scandal--remind me to tell you. He was only a captain then.
He'll probably end as a king or something. This war is certainly good
to some people."

Davidge watched Marie Louise studying the somber officer. He was a bit
jealous, shamed by his own civilian clothes. Suddenly Marie Louise's
smile at Polly's chatter stopped short, shriveled, then returned to
her face with a look of effort. Her muscles seemed to be determined