Justine Brent, putting the last rose in place, turned from her task with
a protesting gesture.

"My dear Effie, who am I to think little of any society, when I belong
to none?" She passed a last light touch over the flowers, and crossing
the room, brushed her friend's hand with the same caressing gesture.

Mrs. Dressel met it with an unrelenting turn of her plump shoulder,
murmuring: "Oh, if you take _that_ tone!" And on Miss Brent's gaily
rejoining: "Isn't it better than to have other people take it for me?"
she replied, with an air of affront that expressed itself in a ruffling
of her whole pretty person: "If you'll excuse my saying so, Justine, the
fact that you are staying with _me_ would be enough to make you welcome
anywhere in Hanaford!"

"I'm sure of it, dear; so sure that my horrid pride rather resents being
floated in on the high tide of such overwhelming credentials."

Mrs. Dressel glanced up doubtfully at the dark face laughing down on
her. Though she was president of the Maplewood Avenue Book-club, and
habitually figured in the society column of the "Banner" as one of the
intellectual leaders of Hanaford, there were moments when her
self-confidence trembled before Justine's light sallies. It was absurd,
of course, given the relative situations of the two; and Mrs. Dressel,
behind her friend's back, was quickly reassured by the thought that
Justine was only a hospital nurse, who had to work for her living, and
had really never "been anywhere"; but when Miss Brent's verbal arrows
were flying, it seemed somehow of more immediate consequence that she
was fairly well-connected, and lived in New York. No one placed a higher
value on the abstract qualities of wit and irony than Mrs. Dressel; the
difficulty was that she never quite knew when Justine's retorts were
loaded, or when her own susceptibilities were the target aimed at; and
between her desire to appear to take the joke, and the fear of being
ridiculed without knowing it, her pretty face often presented an
interesting study in perplexity. As usual, she now took refuge in
bringing the talk back to a personal issue.

"I can't imagine," she said, "why you won't go to the Gaines's
garden-party. It's always the most brilliant affair of the season; and
this year, with the John Amhersts here, and all their party--that
fascinating Mrs. Eustace Ansell, and Mrs. Amherst's father, old Mr.
Langhope, who is quite as quick and clever as _you_ are--you certainly
can