"

"So--we must talk about my being a failure, my father clipping your
wings of industry and all that--yet we must not mention a woman who
has loved you--and gossiped about it."

"She did not! You know Trudy--you know her nature," he interrupted.

"Taking up her defence! Noble Stevuns! Then you do reciprocate--and
you are planning one of those ready-to-be-served bungalows with even a
broom closet and lovely glass doorknobs, where Mary may gambol about
in organdie and boast of the prize pie she has baked for your supper.
Oh, Stevuns, you are too funny for words!"

She laughed, but there was a malicious sparkle in her eyes. She was
carrying off the situation as best she knew how, for she did not
comprehend its true significance, its highest motive. Underneath her
veneer of sarcasm and ridicule she was hurt, stabbed--quite helpless.

With her father's spirit she resolved to take the death gamely--and
make Steve as ridiculous as possible, to have as good a time as she
could out of such a sorry ending. But she knew as she stood facing
him, so tired and heavy-eyed, the rejected sheet of figures fallen on
the brocaded sofa between them, that it was she who met and
experienced lasting defeat.

By turns she had been the spoiled child of fortune, the romantic
parasite, the mad butterfly, the advanced woman, the Bolshevik de
luxe; and finally and for all time to come she was confronted with the
last possibility--there was no forked road for her--that of a shrewd,
cold flirt. She realized too late the injustice done her under the
name of a father's loving protection. Moreover, she determined never
to let herself realize to any great extent the awfulness of the
injustice. It was, as Steve said, a common fate these days--there was
solace in the fact of never being alone in her defeat. But at five
minutes after twelve she had glimpsed the situation and regretted
briefly all she was denied. Still it was an impossibility to cease
being a Gorgeous Girl.

She felt cheated, stunted, revengeful because of this common fate.
Steve was setting out for new worlds to conquer--he very likely would
have a good time in so doing. She must continue to be fearfully rushed
and terribly popular, having a good time, too. How dull everything
was! Strangely, she did not give Mary Faithful or her part in Steve's
future a thought--just then. She was thinking that Ibsen merely showed
the awakened Nora's going out the door--as have Victorian matrons
s