f the head, where they were
disposed in silken loops and rolls, at the top of which, like a flag
planted on a hill, stood an aigrette, a sparkle and two whiffs.

It may not sound pretty, it was not, but the eye of that day had become
used to it, as eyes have since become used to fashions no prettier, and
as Mrs. Hawthorne's hair was of a soft sunny tint it was that evening
admired by more than one, as was her intrinsically ugly beautiful gown,
which gave a little jerky rebound every time she placed one of those
neat solid satin-shod feet before the other in her progress across the
now attentive room.

She had taken off her long white gloves to eat a cake--or cakes; she was
carrying them loosely swinging from one dimpled hand.

In the middle of the room self-consciousness overtook her. With the
awakening sense of eyes upon her, she looked first to one side, then to
the other. Her smile broadened while growing by just a tinge sheepish;
she seemed to waver and consider turning from her course and finishing
her journey close along the wall, like a mouse....

She finally did not, nor yet hurried. She made her smile explain to
whoever was looking on that a person was excusable for making this sort
of mistake, that it hurt nobody, that one need not and did not care;
that she was sure they did not like her any less for it; they would not
if they knew how void of offense toward them all was her heart; that
having exposed herself to being looked at, she hoped they liked her
looks. Her dress was a very good dress, her laces were very good lace,
and the maid who had done her hair was considered a first-rate hand at
doing hair.

So she was carrying it off, and her smile was only a little
self-conscious, only a shade embarrassed, when from among the men
standing near the library door, for which she was directly making, there
stepped out one to meet her, not unlike a slender needle darting toward
a large, rounded magnet as it comes into due range.

More sensitive than she, feeling the situation much more uncomfortably
for his country-woman than she felt it for herself, a foreign-looking
fellow, who had not quite forgotten that he was an American, after a
moment's hard struggle against his impulse, hastened forward to shorten
for her that uncompanioned course across the floor under ten thousand
search-lights.

"I'm looking for somebody," said Mrs. Hawthorne, with the smile of a
child.

The voice which had made one man think o