as veracious as a politely bred
person may be, but now she understood that the truth is mighty good
business. She resolved to deal in no other wares.

This resolution lasted just long enough for her to make a hasty
exception: she would begin her exclusive use of the truth as soon as
she had told Polly a neat lie in explanation of her inexplicable
journey to Baltimore.

Lady C.-W. was doing Mamise the best turn in her power. Davidge was
still angry at Mamise's flippancy in the face of his ardor. But Lady
C.-W.'s attack gave the flirt the dignity of martyrdom. When Lady
C.-W. finished her subtly casual account of all that Mamise had done
or been accused of doing, Davidge crushed her with the quiet remark:

"So she told me."

"She told you that!"

"Yes, and explained it all!"

"She would!" was the best that Lady Clifton-Wyatt could do, but she
saw that the case was lost. She saw that Davidge's gaze was following
Mamise here and there amid the dancers, and she was sportswoman enough
to concede:

"She is a beauty, anyway--there's no questioning that, at least."

It was the canniest thing she could have done to re-establish herself
in Davidge's eyes. He felt so well reconciled with the world that he
said:

"You wouldn't care to finish this dance, I suppose?"

"Why not?"

Lady Clifton-Wyatt was democratic--in the provinces and the
States--and this was as good a way of changing the subject as any. She
rose promptly and entered the bosom of Davidge. The good American who
did not believe in aristocracies had just time to be overawed at
finding himself hugging a real Lady with a capital L when the music
stopped.

It is an old saw that what is too foolish to be said can be sung.
Music hallows or denatures whatever it touches. It was quite proper,
because quite customary, for Davidge and Lady Clifton-Wyatt to stand
enfolded in each other's embrace so long as a dance tune was in the
air. The moment the musicians quit work the attitude became indecent.

Amazing and eternal mystery, that custom can make the same thing mean
everything, or nothing, or all the between-things. The ancient
Babylonians carried the idea of the permissible embrace to the
ultimate intimacy in their annual festivals, and the good women
doubtless thought no more of it than a woman of to-day thinks of
waltzing with a presentable stranger. They went home to their husbands
and their housework as if they had been to church. Certain Bolsheviki,
even