e--I won't tell you how many years ago. She
deliberately broke my heart, sailed away to Europe, and then returned
and married your father, just out of pique. Now that you know the story
of my life, I ask you, why should I accelerate my motions, as my
captious companion seems to think I should, when your mother's quixotic
conduct deprived me years ago of all possible incentive?"

"Then you are really the Monty Huntington I knew!" Mrs. Thatcher
exclaimed. "I was sure of it when you spoke of your Class to Philip
Hamlen."

"I was sure it was you before you spoke at all," he said quietly. "I
recognized an aroma the moment I came into your presence--"

"An aroma?" Mrs. Thatcher interrupted questioningly.

"I know not whether it was fragrance or reminiscence, but either is
equally sweet."

Huntington's gallantry, half assumed, half real, as it seemed to those
who heard his words, passed simply as a pleasantry with all except
Cosden, who knew his friend too well not to recognize the presence of
something deeper beneath the lightly spoken expressions. But Thatcher's
voice brought him back from his surmises.

"We are counting on you both to join us," he insisted. "Our party will
be incomplete without you."

"Please come," Mrs. Thatcher added. "For the last twenty-four hours I
have been renewing all my girlhood friendships, and poor Edith Stevens
here hasn't had a chance even to express an opinion. That for Edith is
real self-sacrifice."

"Edith is sitting back and learning a thing or two," Miss Stevens
retorted calmly.

"Do come and give her a chance to demonstrate," Mrs. Thatcher appealed.

"I suppose bachelors are as necessary to the demonstration as
guinea-pigs to the laboratory," Huntington said. "Come on, Connie; let
us take a chance."

No truer statement had ever been made in jest than that the previous
twenty-four hours had been a period of self-sacrifice to Edith Stevens.
She was younger than Mrs. Thatcher, and their friends accused them of
accepting each other as foils to accentuate their contrasting
characteristics. Miss Stevens was slight and erect, and was always
gowned with a taste and skill which gave her an air of distinction; her
friend possessed such striking fascination of person and manner that she
gave distinction to any fashion she might adopt. Mrs. Thatcher's
activities accomplished results; Edith's seemed simply the expression of
an eternal unrest. The younger woman's hair was light, and her e