personality unfolding rapidly at
the dawn of their intimacy, had attracted deeply but subtly her own
untried force of character and ruthless will. Embarrassment over, she
had enjoyed their long hour together, and was glad to renew the intimacy,
to find that her old friend's warm affection had lost nothing with the
years. And she had found her more interesting than in her youth.

She sighed a little as she looked back on her long hours of almost
unbroken solitude in this old house. She had been comparatively happy at
first--a blessed interval of rest and peace in this marvellously wealthy
and prosperous city where the poor were kept out of sight, at least,
where all the men were whole and where one never saw a gaunt woman's
appealing eyes, or emaciated ragged children. Those untroubled hours had
fled for ever and astonishment, impotent fury, and dire mental conflict
had followed, but nevertheless she had dreamed--dreamed--and been glad of
her freedom from social and all other duties. Now, probably these women
and many more would swarm here.

Her mouth twisted as her maid helped her into the soft gray coat trimmed
with blue fox. Ordeal! That would come on Saturday night. No wonder
she was merely amused and totally indifferent today!

When she arrived at the house in Gramercy Park, purposely late, to give
her entrance the effect Mrs. Oglethorpe had commanded, she heard an
excited buzz of voices in the drawing-room as she was being relieved of
her wrap. As she entered it ceased abruptly and she heard several hardly
perceptible gasps. But the pause, before they all crowded about her, was
too brief to be noticeable, and they shook her hand heartily or kissed
her warmly. If their eyes were perhaps too studiously expressionless,
their words and manner might have been those of old friends welcoming
back one who had been long absent and nothing more. Conflicting
emotions, born of undying femininity, were not evident for the moment.
Mrs. Goodrich cried out at once how wonderfully well she looked, Mrs.
Lawrence asked if she had stopped in Paris for her clothes, and Mrs. Vane
if she found New York much changed. Nothing could have gone off better.

Mrs. Oglethorpe, in old-pile black velvet as usual, with a front and
high-boned collar of yellow rose-point lace, stood in the background
watching the comedy with a frank sardonic grin. If her guests had been
faithless to the traditions in which they had been bred, she wou