ene brightness and her eyes
dwelt on him in complete friendliness. "I'd even sleep in the studio,
but have made one concession to my poor family. They're not
reconciled, but, after all, I am twenty-four--and spent two years in
France. I have had three orders for portraits--friends of the family,
of course. I must be content with 'pull' until I am taken seriously as
an artist. If I can only exhibit at the next Academy I shall feel
full-fledged."

"And what of your new circle?"

"I've been to several parties and enjoyed myself hugely. Some of them
get pretty tight, but I've seen people tighter at house parties and not
nearly so amusing. And then Gora and Suzan! I've never liked any
women as well. . . . This is the first dinner of the old sort I've
been to since I started."

"Ah?" asked Clavering absently. "Why the exception?"

"Well, you see, I am tremendously _intriguee_, like every one else.
I'd met her several times at home, and she came one day to my studio,
where the Sophisticates made the most tremendous fuss over her. But I
was curious to see her in her own old home, where she had reigned so
long ago as Mary Ogden. Mother told me that everything was unchanged
except the stair carpet and her bedroom." Her tone was lightly
impersonal, and still more so as she added: "Why don't you write a
novel about her, Lee? She must be the most remarkable psychological
study of the age. Fancy living two lifetimes in the same body. It
puts reincarnation to the blush. I suppose she'll bury us all."

Clavering shot her a sharp investigating glance, but replied suavely:
"Not necessarily. The same road is open to all of you."

Miss Goodrich had never looked more the fine and dignified
representative of her class as she lifted her candid eyes with an
expression of disdain.

"My dear Lee! Really! There _are_ some women above that sort of
thing."

"Above? I don't think I follow you. But of course she's given
hide-bound conservatism a pretty hard jolt."

"It's not that--really. But all women growing old and trying to be or
to look young again are rather undignified--according to our standards
at least, and I have been brought up in the belief that they are the
highest in the world. And then, one's sense of humor----!"

"Humor? Is that what you call it?" (Damn all women for cats, the best
of them. Anne!)

"Why, yes, isn't it rather absurd--for more reasons than one?
To my mind it is the complete far