no jeweller of Amsterdam ever had an eye for the quality
of diamonds surer than the eye of Frances Rhett for the quality of other
women's beauty. At the first glance to-night, she saw what others saw,
though more clearly than they, that it was the touch of the past that gave
Phyl her _cachet_, a something indefinable from yesterday, the lack of
which made the other girls, by contrast, seem cheap.

Never could she have imagined that the "red-headed girl at Vernons" could
gain so much from setting, a setting due to the instinct as well as the
taste of "that old Maria Pinckney."

She had always laughed at Maria, as young people sometimes will at the
old.

When Richard came up to her a little later on, he found himself coldly
received; she had no dances for him except a few at the bottom of the
programme.

"You shouldn't have been late," said she.

"Well," he said, "it was not my fault. You know what Aunt Maria is, she
kept us ten minutes after the carriage was round, and then Phyl wasn't
ready."

"She looks ready enough now," said the other, looking at Phyl and the
cluster of young men around her. "What delayed her? Was she dyeing her
head? It doesn't look quite so loud as when I saw her last."

"Her head's all right," replied Pinckney, irritated by the manner of the
other, "inside and out, and one can't say the same for every one."

Frances looked at him.

"Do you know what Silas Grangerson asked me to-night?" she said.

"No."

"He asked me were you engaged to her."

"Phyl?"

"Miss Berknowles. I don't know her well enough to call her Phyl."

"He asked you that?"

"Yes, said every one was talking of it, and the last time he saw you
together you looked like an engaged couple the way you were carrying on."

"But he has never seen us together," cried the outraged Pinckney; "that
was a pure lie."

"I expect he saw you when you didn't see him; anyhow, that's the
impression people have got, and it's not very pleasant for me."

Richard Pinckney choked back his anger. He fell to thinking where Silas
could have seen them together.

"I don't know whether he saw us or not," said he, "but I am certain of one
thing; he never saw us 'carrying on' as you call it; anyhow, I'll have a
personal explanation from Silas to-morrow."

"_Please_ don't imagine that I object to your flirting with any one you
like," said Frances with exasperating calm. "If you have a taste for that
sort of thing it is your own business."