n said,
Gracie wasn't a bad sort at all. As a matter of fact, neither was
the blonde person. Vandervelde saw that, and it troubled his
complacent satisfaction with things. He saw in the waste of these
women an effect of that fatally unmoral energy ironically called
modern civilization. He wondered how Marcia, or Peter's wife, would
react to Gracie. Should he tell them about her? N-no, he rather
thought not.

Marcia had cabled that she and Anne were leaving Italy--were, in
fact, on their way home. During his wife's absence he had had to
make two or three South American trips, to safeguard certain
valuable Champneys interests. The trips had been highly successful
and interesting, and he hadn't disliked them, but Vandervelde was
incurably domestic; he liked Marcia at the household helm.

"I wanted to hire half a dozen brass-bands to meet you," he told his
wife the morning of her arrival, and kissed her brazenly. "Marcia,
you are prettier than ever! As for Anne--" At sight of Anne
Champneys his eyes widened.

"Why, Anne!--Why Anne!" He took off his glasses, polished them, and
stared at his ward. Marcia smiled the pleased smile of the artist
whose work is being appreciated by a competent critic. She was
immensely proud of the tall fair girl, so poised, so serene, so
decorative.

"As a target for the human eye," said Vandervelde, fervently,
"you're more than a success: you're a riot!"

Anne slipped her hand into the crook of his arm. "I'm glad you like
me," said she, frankly. "It's so nice when the right people like
one."

Hayden was not in town. He didn't, as a matter of fact, know that
they had left Italy, for Anne's last letter had said nothing of any
intention to return to America shortly. Anne felt curiously
disappointed that he wasn't at the pier with Jason to meet them. She
was surprised at her own eagerness to see him. He pleased her more
than any man she had ever met, and her impatience grew with his
absence.

Marcia, a born general, was already planning with masterly attention
to details the social career of Mrs. Peter Champneys. With the
forces that she could command, the immense power that Berkeley
Hayden would swing in her favor, and the Champneys money, that
career promised to be unusually brilliant, when one considered Anne
herself.

The Champneys house was to be reopened. In the main, as Chadwick
Champneys had planned it, it pleased Marcia's critical taste. Anne
herself appreciated as she had bee