r, she had little
personality and less charm.

Nothing, as a matter of fact, had been frightened out of her; for weeks
she had lived in imagination so vividly through that day that when the
day really arrived it found her physically and mentally unresponsive;
the endless reiteration of names sounded meaninglessly in her ears, the
crowding faces blurred. She was passively satisfied to be there, and
content with the touch of hands and the pleasant-voiced formalities of
people pressing toward her from every side.

* * * * *

Afterward few impressions remained; she remembered the roses' perfume,
and a very fat woman with a confusing similarity of contour fore and aft
who blocked the lines and rattled on like a machine-gun saying
dreadfully frank things about herself, her family, and everybody she
mentioned.

Naida Mallett, whom she had not seen in many years, she had known
immediately, and now remembered. And Naida had taken her white-gloved
hand shyly, whispering constrained formalities, then had disappeared
into the unreality of it all.

Duane, her old playmate, may have been there, but she could not remember
having seen him. There were so many, many youths of the New York sort,
all dressed alike, all resembling one another--many, many people flowing
past her where she stood submerged in the silken ebb eddying around her.

* * * * *

These were the few hazy impressions remaining--she was recalling them
now while dressing for her first dinner dance. Later, when her maid
released her with a grunt of Gallic disapproval, she, distraite, glanced
at her gown in the mirror, still striving to recall something definite
of the day before.

"_Was_ Duane there?" she asked Kathleen, who had just entered.

"No, dear.... Why did you happen to think of Duane Mallett?"

"Naida came.... Duane was such a splendid little boy.... I had hoped----"

Mrs. Severn said coolly:

"Duane isn't a very splendid man. I might as well tell you now as
later."

"What in the world do you mean, Kathleen?"

"I mean that people say he was rather horrid abroad. Some women don't
mind that sort of thing, but I do."

"Horrid? How?"

"He went about Europe with unpleasant people. He had too much money--and
that is ruinous for a boy. I hate to disillusion you, but for several
years people have been gossipping about Duane Mallett's exploits abroad;
and they are not savoury."

"What wer