she sat to photographers or occupied boxes on first
nights--because 'they' would have it so. George was baffled to discover
the origin of her prestige. He had to seek it in her complexion. Her
complexion was indubitably miraculous. He enjoyed looking at it, though
he lacked the experience to know that he was looking at a complexion
held by connoisseurs who do naught else but look at complexions to be a
complexion unique in Europe. George, unsophisticated, thought that the
unaffected simplicity--far exceeding self-confidence--with which she
acquiesced in her prestige was perhaps more miraculous than her
complexion. It staggered him.

The dinner was a social success. Irene Wheeler listened adroitly, if
without brilliance, and after one glass of wine George found himself
quite able to talk in the Enwright manner about architecture and the
profession of architecture, and also to talk about automobiles. The
casualness with which he mentioned his Final Examination was superb--the
examiners might have been respectfully waiting for him to arrive and
discomfit them. But of course the main subject was automobiles. Even
Laurencine knew the names of all the leading makers, and when the names
of all the leading makers had been enumerated and their products
discussed, the party seemed to think that it had accomplished something
that was both necessary and stylish. When the tablecloth had been
renewed, and the solemn moment came for Everard Lucas to order liqueurs,
George felt almost gay. He glanced round the gilded and mirrored
apartment, now alluringly animated by the subdued yet vivacious
intimacies of a score of white tables, and decided that the institution
of restaurants was a laudable and agreeable institution. Marguerite had
receded further than ever into the background of his mind; and as for
the Final, it had diminished to a formality.

"And you?" Everard asked Laurencine, after Miss Wheeler.

George had thought that Laurencine was too young for liqueurs. She had
had no wine. He expected her to say 'Nothing, thanks,' as conventionally
as if her late head mistress had been present. But she hesitated,
smiling, and then, obedient to the profound and universal instinct
which seems to guide all young women to the same liqueur, she said:

"May I have a _creme de menthe_? I've never had _creme de menthe_."

George was certainly shocked for an instant. But no one else appeared to
be shocked. Miss Wheeler, in charge of Laurencine