e sonata to Isabelle's excitable
temperament. Isabelle had been for some time capable of very strong, if
very transient emotions....

They drew up at a spreading, white-stone building, set back from the
snowy street. Mrs. Weatherby greeted her warmly and her various younger
cousins were produced from the corners where they skulked politely.
Isabelle met them tactfully. At her best she allied all with whom she
came in contact--except older girls and some women. All the impressions
she made were conscious. The half-dozen girls she renewed acquaintance
with that morning were all rather impressed and as much by her direct
personality as by her reputation. Amory Blaine was an open subject.
Evidently a bit light of love, neither popular nor unpopular--every girl
there seemed to have had an affair with him at some time or other, but
no one volunteered any really useful information. He was going to fall
for her.... Sally had published that information to her young set
and they were retailing it back to Sally as fast as they set eyes on
Isabelle. Isabelle resolved secretly that she would, if necessary,
_force_ herself to like him--she owed it to Sally. Suppose she were
terribly disappointed. Sally had painted him in such glowing colors--he
was good-looking, "sort of distinguished, when he wants to be," had a
line, and was properly inconstant. In fact, he summed up all the romance
that her age and environment led her to desire. She wondered if those
were his dancing-shoes that fox-trotted tentatively around the soft rug
below.

All impressions and, in fact, all ideas were extremely kaleidoscopic to
Isabelle. She had that curious mixture of the social and the artistic
temperaments found often in two classes, society women and actresses.
Her education or, rather, her sophistication, had been absorbed from
the boys who had dangled on her favor; her tact was instinctive, and
her capacity for love-affairs was limited only by the number of the
susceptible within telephone distance. Flirt smiled from her large
black-brown eyes and shone through her intense physical magnetism.

So she waited at the head of the stairs that evening while slippers
were fetched. Just as she was growing impatient, Sally came out of the
dressing-room, beaming with her accustomed good nature and high spirits,
and together they descended to the floor below, while the shifting
search-light of Isabelle's mind flashed on two ideas: she was glad she
had high colo