ient photographs of her girlhood friends,"
she remarked with her insolent eyes on Madame Zattiany, "and one of
them's enough like you to be you masquerading in the get-up of the
eighties. Comes back to me. Just before mother left I heard her
discussing you with a bunch of her friends. Isn't there some mystery
or other about you?"

"Yes, indeed! Is it not so?" Madame Zattiany addressed her glowering
host, her eyes twinkling. It was evident that she regarded this
representative of the new order with a scientific interest, as if it
were a new sort of bug and herself an entomologist. "Probably," she
added indulgently, "the most mysterious woman in New York. What you
would call an adventuress if you were not too young to be uncharitable.
Mr. Clavering is kind enough to take me on trust."

Miss Oglethorpe's wrath waxed. This creature of an obsolete order had
the temerity to laugh at her. Moreover---- She flashed a glance from
Clavering's angry anxious face to the beautiful woman opposite, and a
real color blazed in her cheeks. But she summoned a sneer.

"Noble again! Has he told you of our little adventure last night?"

"Last night?" A flicker crossed the serenity of Madame Zattiany's
face. "But no. I do not fancy Mr. Clavering is in the habit of
telling his little adventures."

"Oh, he wouldn't. Old standards. Southern chivalry. All the rest of
it. That's why he's granny's model young man. Well, I'll tell you----"

"You've been drinking again," hissed Clavering.

"Of course. Cocktail party at Donny's----"

"Well, moderate your voice. It isn't necessary to take the entire room
into your confidence. Better still, go back to your own table."

She raised her voice. "You see, Madame Zattiany, I was running round
loose at about one o'clock A. M. when whom should I run into but dear
old Uncle Lee. He looked all shot to pieces when he saw me. Girls in
his day didn't stay out late unless they had a beau. Ten o'clock was
the limit, anyhow. But did he take advantage of my unprotected maiden
innocence? Not he. He stood there in the snow and delivered a lecture
on the error of my ways, then took me to a delicatessen shop--afraid of
compromising himself in a restaurant--and stuffed me with sandwiches
and bananas. Even there, while we were perched on two high stools, he
didn't make love to me as any human man would have done. He just ate
sandwiches and lectured. God! Life must have been dull for