l, and
blushed. "Oh, I didn't mean to be--I--I couldn't help wishing it, Miss
Goodchild!"

"I'm sure I'm very grateful for your good wishes," Grace told her,
graciously.

The child's--age twenty-four--eyes filled with tears. As Grace walked
away, Mayme's lips moved raptly. She was memorizing dem woids.

On her way out Grace went through the same craning of necks, the same
vivid curiosity, the same half-audible murmurs, the same spitefulness in
the eyes of the women who, though rich, were not famous. Everybody is so
disgustingly rich nowadays that society had begun to applaud such
remarks as, "I've had to give up one of my motors," or, "Jim says he
won't put the _Mermaid_ in commission this year; simply can't afford
it."

At Raquin's wonderful exhibition of models Grace saw exactly what she
wished to see. It would be worthy of her and of her throat. One who is
photographed many times a week has to have gowns; not to have them is
almost immoral. Grace was so concerned with doing her duty toward the
public that she forgot that she had come to see the third one, next to
Mrs. Vandergilt's black. She was nearly half-way home before she
remembered what her mother had asked her to do.

Grace went back to the Fitz-Marlton. Dress was a public service. Mrs.
Goodchild's clothes must tell the public whose mother she was.

She told the chauffeur "Home," and began to think.

Pleasure could be made a duty. Blessed indeed is she in whose mind, as
in a vast cathedral, pleasure and duty solemnly contract nuptials.

This beautiful figure of speech in turn made her think of marriage. If
she married Reggie or Mr. Watson or Percival or one of the others, what
would her married life be? What?

One long visit to Philadelphia!

"I could kill him!" she said to the flower-holder, frowning fiercely.
Happening to catch a glimpse of herself in the mirror for that purpose
provided in an town cars, Grace smoothed her brow and smiled. A man
would have required slathers of flattery to dispel ill-humor. With a
woman, the truth is enough. A mirror does not lie. Providence is more
than kind to them; even automatic.

If she wouldn't marry Reggie or the others and did marry H. R.-- But how
could she?

She was an imaginative American girl with a sunshiny soul and much
vitality who lived in New York. She thought of her marriage to H. R. She
thought of the newspapers! The mound of clippings that instantly loomed
before her made her gasp.

What