rrupted, was altogether of her own
election) and was happily guiltless of any positive fault; long
proscription to the social hinterland of dingy boarding-houses, smug
quick-lunch rooms, and casual studio feeding had not affected her nice
feeling for the sensible thing at table. She possessed, furthermore,
in full measure that amazing adaptability which seems to be innate
with most American women of any walk in life; whatever she might
lack to her detriment or embarrassment she was quick to mark, learn,
assimilate, and make as much her own as if she had never been without
it.

And then--for in spite of reassurances persistently iterated by Mrs.
Standish, the news from New York troubled her
profoundly--preoccupation largely counteracted self-consciousness
through those first few dreaded moments of Sally's modest social
debut.

The men on either side of her she found severally, if quite amiably,
agreeable to indulge her reticence. Savage, for one, was secretly, she
guessed, quite as much disconcerted by the reported contretemps in
town; but he dissembled well, with a show of whimsical exasperation
because of this emergency that tore him so soon away from both Gosnold
House and his other neighbour at table, a Mrs. Artemas--a spirited,
mercurial creature, not over-handsome of face, but wonderfully smart
in dress and gesture, superbly stayed and well aware of it; a dark,
fine woman who recognised the rivalry latent in Sally's dark looks
without dismay--as Sally conceded she might well.

On her other hand sat a handsome, well-bred boy of eighteen or so, one
of the tennis four, answering to the name of Bob--evidently a cheerful
soul, but at ease in the persuasion that comparative children should
be seen and so forth. His partner of the courts sat next
him--name, Babs--a frank-eyed, wholesome girl, perhaps a year his
senior. Their surnames did not transpire, but they impressed Sally,
and correctly, as unrelated save in community of unsentimental
interests. The other players were not present.

Aside from these, the faces strange to her were those of a Miss Pride
and Messrs. Lyttleton and Trego.

The last-named impressed her as a trifle ill at ease, possibly because
of the blandishments of Mrs. Artemas, who had openly singled him out
to be her special prey, and discovered an attitude of proprietorship
to which he could not be said to respond with the ardour of a
passionate, impulsive nature. A youngish man, with a heavy bo