y portieres were flung back by a
vigorous arm, and a very tall, broad-shouldered, clean-shaven young
man, in a well-tailored brown suit, stepped in. He accosted his
hostess with easy assurance, but went through his introduction to
Sylvia in a rather awkward silence.

"Now we'll have tea," said Mrs. Draper at once, pressing a button. In
a moment a maid brought in a tray shining with silver and porcelain,
set it down on the table in front of Mrs. Draper, and then wheeled in
a little circular table with shelves, a glorified edition in gleaming
mahogany of the homely, white-painted wheeled-tray of Sylvia's home.
On the shelves was a large assortment of delicate, small cakes and
paper-thin sandwiches. While she poured out the amber-colored tea into
the translucent cups, Mrs. Draper kept up with the new-comer a lively
monologue of personalities, in which Sylvia, for very ignorance of the
people involved, could take no part. She sat silent, watching with
concentration the two people before her, the singularly handsome man,
certainly the handsomest man she had ever seen, and the far from
handsome but singularly alluring woman who faced him, making such a
display of her two good points, her rich figure and her fine dark
eyes, that for an instant the rest of her person seemed non-existent.

"How do you like your tea, dear?" The mistress of the house brought
her stranded guest back into the current of talk with this well-worn
hook.

"Oh, it doesn't make any difference," said Sylvia, who, as it
happened, did not like the taste of tea.

"You really ought to have it nectar; with whipped ambrosia on top."
Mrs. Draper troweled this statement on with a dashing smear, saving
Sylvia from being forced to answer, by adding lightly to the man, "Is
ambrosia anything that will whip, do you suppose?"

"Never heard of it before," he answered, breaking his silence with a
carefree absence of shame at his confession of ignorance. "Sounds
like one of those labels on a soda-water fountain that nobody ever
samples."

Mrs. Draper made a humorously exaggerated gesture of despair and
turned to Sylvia. "Well, it's just as well, my dear, that you should
know at the very beginning what a perfect monster of illiteracy he is!
You needn't expect anything from him but his stupid good-looks, and
money and fascination. Otherwise he's a Cave-Man for ignorance. You
must take him in hand!" She turned back to the man. "Sylvia, you know,
is as clever as she is