achieving
something, capturing, inventing, destroying, earning if need be--but
doing something. The daughter of Mark and Hannah Constantine could not
help but have the germ of great ability within her, sluggish and
spoiled as it might be; and it must perforce duly manifest itself from
time to time. Beatrice realized that Trudy felt a greater joy and
satisfaction in displaying this not-paid-for cheap machine--having sat
up half the night to make the shirred curtains--than Beatrice ever
could feel in her tapestry-lined, orchid-adorned limousine. So she
began to envy Trudy just as Trudy envied her. Trudy had done nothing
but struggle to be able to live, as she termed it; Beatrice had never
been allowed to struggle!

"We owe for all but the left back tire," Trudy said before any one had
the chance to hint of the fact; "but Gay has to have it for his new
business, and it is such a joy! I hope you approve, Beatrice. And what
a darling gown!"

There was nothing left for Beatrice but to order the cocktails and
toast, and for Aunt Belle to agree smilingly with Trudy's clever
suggestions.

Trudy never came to see Beatrice unless she gained some material point
or had one in view, and the point she had come to gain this afternoon
was of no small importance. In her own fashion she managed to inform
her hostess that Gay had received an order from--well, it was a
tremendous secret and he would be terribly cross if he knew she told
even her dearest Bea and her sweet Aunt Belle, but she just couldn't
help it--he had an order from Alice Twill, who thought she was going
to beat everyone in town to the greatest sensation of the year: To
have the barn of a Twill mansion remodelled, decorated and so on, from
coal bin to cupola, until it was an exact copy of a French palace--she
really forgot just which one. ... Yes, Alice's aunt in Australia had
died and left her everything; Alice said she was not going to wait
until she was on crutches before she spent it. Gay was simply out of
his head trying to plan the thing and Alice was to move to a hotel for
several weeks until a newly furnished wing was ready to be inhabited.

There was no reason why New York persons should have their homes like
palaces and chateaux and so on, and turn their noses up at upstate
residences. Alice was going to show them. And--this very subtly--Gay
had said that if only Beatrice could have the authority to redecorate
her father's home into an Italian villa Alice T