Varick, directly at Mr. Tappan.

"If you could see your way to--ah--accede to some--a number--perhaps, in
a measure, to all of Miss Seagrave's not unreasonable requests, Mr.
Tappan----"

[Illustration: "'Can I have what other women have--silk underwear and
stockings?'"]

He hesitated, looked dubiously at Mr. Montross, who nodded. Mr. Cray,
also, made an almost imperceptible sign of concurrence. Magnelius
Grandcourt, the sixty-year _enfant terrible_ of the company, dreaded
for his impulsive outbursts--though the effect of these outbursts was
always very carefully considered before-hand--stepped jauntily across
the floor, and lifting Geraldine's hand to his rather purplish lips,
saluted it with a flourish.

"Oh, I say, Tappan, let Miss Seagrave have what she wants!" he exclaimed
with a hearty disregard of caution, which outwardly disturbed but
inwardly deceived nobody except Geraldine and Mrs. Severn.

Colonel Mallett thought: "The acquisitive beast is striking attitudes on
his fool of a son's account."

Mr. Tappan's small iron-gray eyes bored two holes through the inward
motives of Mr. Grandcourt, and his mouth tightened till the seamed lips
were merely a line.

"I think, Magnelius," said Colonel Mallett coldly, "that it is, perhaps,
the sense of our committee that the time has practically arrived for
some change--perhaps radical change--in the--in the--ah--the hitherto
exceedingly wise regulations----"

"_May_ I have real lace?" cried Geraldine--"Oh, I _beg_ your pardon,
Colonel Mallett, for interrupting, but I was perfectly crazy to know
what you were going to say."

Other people have been crazier and endured more to learn what hope the
verdict of ponderous authority might hold for them.

Colonel Mallett, a trifle ruffled at the interruption, swallowed several
times and then continued without haste to rid himself of a weighty
opinion concerning the debut and the petticoats of the Half Moon's ward.
He might have made the child happy in one word. It took him twenty
minutes.

Concurring opinions were then solemnly delivered by every director in
turn except Mr. Tappan, who spoke for half an hour, doggedly dissenting
on every point.

But the days of the old regime were evidently numbered. He understood
it. He looked across at the crackled portrait of his old friend Anthony
Seagrave; the faded, painted features were obliterated in a bar of
slanting sunlight.

So, concluding his dissenting opinion, and havi