't dance any more that night. I wrapped the scarf about
my head, and went back to my hotel. Colin Quale went with me. All the
way he talked about the sacredness of beauty. He opened my eyes. I
began to see that loveliness should be suggested rather than
emphasized. And I have told you this because I want you to understand
about Colin. He isn't in love with me. I rather fancy that back home
in Amesbury or Newburyport, or whatever town it is that he hails from,
there's somebody whom he'll find to marry. To him I am a statue to be
molded. I am clay, marble, a tube of paint, a canvas ready for his
brush. It was the same way with this old house. He wanted a setting
for me, and he couldn't rest until he had found it. He has not only
changed my atmosphere, he has changed my manner--I was going to say my
morals--he brings to me portraits of Romney ladies and Gainsborough
ladies--until I seem positively to swim in a sea of stateliness. And
what I said just now about manners and morals is true. A woman lives
up to the clothes she wears. If you think this change is on the
surface, it isn't. I couldn't talk slang in a Gainsborough hat, and be
in keeping, so I don't talk slang; and a perfect lady in a moleskin
mantle must have morals to match; so in my little mantle I cannot tell
a lie."

To see her with lowered lashes, telling it, was the funniest thing in
the world, and Porter shouted. Then her lashes were, for a moment,
raised, and the old Delilah peeped out, shrewd, impish.

"He wants me to change my name. No, don't misunderstand me--not my
last one. But the first. He says that Delilah smacks of the
adventuress. I don't think he is quite sure of the Bible story, but he
gets his impressions from grand opera--and he knows that the Delilah of
the Samson story wasn't nice--not in a lady-like sense. My middle name
is Anne. He likes that better."

"Lady Anne? You'll look the part in that garden party frock he is
designing for you."

And now she had reached the question toward which she had been working.
"Shall you go?"

He shook his head. "I doubt it. It isn't a function from which one
will be missed. And the Ballards won't be there. Mary is going over
to New York with Constance for a few days before the sailing. I'm to
join them on the final day."

"And you won't go to the garden party without Mary?"

He found himself moved, suddenly, to speak out to her.

"She wouldn't go if she were here--not