I ever ate. Are you comfortable? Is
that chair all right?"

Claudia nodded. "Why don't you sit down? I'm sorry we can't see the
people, but it's nice to be out of the crowd." She looked around the
room. "This is a very handsome house. I never saw more gorgeous
flowers, and tomorrow," she gave a queer little sigh, "tomorrow it
will all be over--and the flowers faded."

"Faded things are the penalties of wealth. It's the one compensation
for follies of this sort that they are soon over."

"I don't think they are always follies. When I was young--"

He looked down at her, in his eyes a quiet gleam. "When you were
what?"

"Young. Really young, I mean. I had my party when I was eighteen.
I remember it just as well." She gave a happy little laugh. "But of
course we change with time. My sister says I am developing a
dreadful disease. It's a tendency. Did you ever have it?"

"A what?"

"A tendency--to think and wonder and ask questions, you know. She
says people who have it are very trying. But how can you help a
thing you're born with?" She leaned forward, pushed the plates
aside, and folded her arms on the table. "I always wondered about
things, but I didn't entirely wake up until I was over twenty. I
don't blame people for having things like this"--she waved her hands
inclusively--"that is, if they like this kind of thing." She looked
up at him. "We're just like children. All of us love to splurge
every now and then. Don't we?"

"It looks that way. Splurge has a variety of forms." Laine leaned
forward, hands clasped loosely between his knees. "But the
tendency--is it catching?"

She laughed. "In the country it is. I live in the country, but it
didn't develop in me until I had several winters in the city. I used
to love things like this. I didn't know much about a good many other
things, and it was when I found out that I began to look at people
and wonder if they knew, and cared, and what they were doing with
it--their life I mean, their chance, their time, their money. One
winter it got so bad Lettice sent me home. Lettice lives in
Washington; she's my second sister. My oldest sister is a widow, and
is still in London, where her husband died two years ago. I kept
looking for glad faces and real, sure-enough happiness; and so many
people looked bored and bothered and tired that I couldn't
understand--and Lettice made me go home. Her husband is in Congress,
and she said I wa