of her, smiling at
Clavering. "I am sorry I do not know any young ladies," she said
graciously, although there was a twinkle in her eye. "You look rather
lonesome."

"Why should he?" growled Dinwiddie. "He is young and you are young. The
rest of us are the ones to feel out of it."

"Not a bit of it! Not a bit of it!" exclaimed Judge Trent. "You forget
that Madame Zattiany has lived in Europe since infancy. She's talked to
elderly statesmen all her life."

"Well, we're not statesmen, the lord knows." Dinwiddie could always be
relied on to make the obvious retort, thought Clavering, although it must
be admitted that he was seldom with none at all. "But you must have seen
more young men than old during the war, Madame Zattiany. I understand
that Mary turned her palace in Buda Pesth into a hospital and that you
were her chief assistant."

"That is quite true, and I had by no means confined myself before that to
elderly statesmen; but I had almost forgotten what a young man on his
feet looked like before the war finished. Or Society, for that matter.
My one temptation to enter Society here would be the hope of forming a
relief organization--drive, do you call it?--for the starving children of
Austria. Russian children are not the only pitiable objects in Europe,
and after all, the children of civilized countries are of more value to
the future of the world."

"Another drive!" Judge Trent groaned. "New York flees to cover at the
word. Enter Society by all means, but to give your youth its rights.
You have been deprived of them too long."

"I shall never feel as young as that again. Nor will any girl who was
merely sixteen at the beginning of the war ever be the same as your
care-free young ladies here. I sit in the restaurants and watch them
with amazement--often with anger. What right have they . . .
however . . . as for myself I shall not reenter the world for any but the
object I have just mentioned. Luncheons! Dinners! Balls! I was
surfeited before the war. And I have forgotten persiflage, small talk.
I am told that Americans avoid serious topics in Society. I, alas, have
become very serious."

She swept her favored guests with a disarming smile. They understood.
There was no sting in her words for them.

Clavering spoke up eagerly. "Why should you bore yourself with social
functions? If you want to raise money for the children I will not only
start a drive in my column but take you to