"break." She felt genuinely sorry for the silent
girl growing moment by moment more ill-at-ease. When the luncheon was
about half over Selma said abruptly to Jane:

"I must go now. I've stayed longer than I should."

"Go?" cried Jane. "Why, we haven't begun to talk yet."

"Another time," said Selma, pushing back her chair. "No, don't rise."
And up she darted, smiling gayly round at the company. "Don't anybody
disturb herself," she pleaded. "It'll be useless, for I'll be gone."

And she was as good as her word. Before any one quite realized what
she was about, she had escaped from the dining-room and from the house.
She almost ran across the lawn and into the woods. There she drew a
long breath noisily.

"Free!" she cried, flinging out her arms. "Oh--but it was DREADFUL!"

Miss Hastings and Miss Clearwater had not been so penetrating as they
fancied. Embarrassment had nothing to do with the silence that had
taken possession of the associate editor of the New Day.

She was never self-conscious enough to be really shy. She hastened to
the office, meeting Victor Dorn in the street doorway. She cried:

"Such an experience!"

"What now?" said Victor. He was used to that phrase from the ardent
and impressionable Selma. For her, with her wide-open eyes and ears,
her vivid imagination and her thirsty mind, life was one closely packed
series of adventures.

"I had an hour to spare," she proceeded to explain. "I thought it was
a chance to further a little scheme I've got for marrying Jane Hastings
and David Hull."

"Um!" said Victor with a quick change of expression--which, however,
Selma happened not to observe.

"And," she went on, "I blundered into a luncheon party Jane was giving.
You never saw--you never dreamed of such style--such dresses and dishes
and flowers and hats! And I was sitting there with them, enjoying it
all as if it were a circus or a ballet, when--Oh, Victor, what a silly,
what a pitiful waste of time and money! So much to do in the world--so
much that is thrillingly interesting and useful--and those intelligent
young people dawdling there at nonsense a child would weary of! I had
to run away. If I had stayed another minute I should have burst out
crying--or denouncing them--or pleading with them to behave themselves."

"What else can they do?" said Victor. "They don't know any better.
They've never been taught. How's the article?"

And he led the way up to the editorial ro