Edith Kent?" said
the Judge rudely. "Give Miss Judy a penny for her thoughts, if you want
them, Everard. You've got to pay sometimes, you know--even you."

"Don't commercialize her too young," said Mr. Sebastian smoothly.
"Though, on the whole--can you commercialize them too young?"

"Judith, what were you thinking about?" the Colonel interrupted, rather
quickly, turning every one's eyes upon her at once, as he could with a
word.

Judith met them confidently--amused, curious eyes, but all friendly and
gay. They talked a great deal of nonsense here, but it did not irritate
her, as it did her friend Judge Saxon, though she was not always amused,
and could not always understand. They never tried to shock her. She was
sorry for the Judge. He was not at home with these gay and good-natured
people, and it was so easy to be.

She tipped her head backward in deliberate imitation of Edith Kent, whom
she admired, half closed her eyes, like Lillian Burr, whom she admired
still more, gazed up at the Colonel, and said, in her clear little
voice:

"I was thinking about you."

"That's the answer," said Mr. Kent, and rewarded it with a lump of sugar
dipped in his apricot brandy.

"For an ingenue?" said Mrs. Burr, very sweetly indeed.

"'She's getting older every day,'" hummed Mrs. Kent, in her charming,
throaty contralto.

But Judge Saxon pushed back his chair and rose abruptly.

"I've had dinner enough," he said, "and so have you, Miss Judy."

"We all have, Hugh," said the Colonel quickly, and rose, too, and
slipped an intimate hand through his arm. "Run along, children! Hugh,
about that Brady matter----"

Judge Saxon submitted sulkily, but was laughing companionably with the
Colonel by the time they all reached the library.

Judith never admired the Colonel more than when he was managing Judge
Saxon in a sulky mood. And she never admired the Colonel and his friends
more than she did in the lazy intimate hour here before the cards began.

The room was long and high, and too narrow; unfriendly, as only a room
that is both badly proportioned and unusually large can be, but you
forgot this in the softening glow of candles and rose-shaded lights. You
forgot, too, that you were an exile from your own generation, among
elders who bored you, though you were subtly flattered to be among them.
Safe on a high window-bench in the most remote window, entirely your
own, since the architect had not designed it to be sat on, and no