s; so it
is the woman who strikes some high note of conspicuousness who attracts
attention. But you're like a flock of cooing doves, you Washington
girls. You're as natural and frank and unaffected as a--a covey of
partridges. I believe I am almost jealous of your Mary Ballard this
morning."

"Not because of Porter?"

"Not because of any man. But there are things about her which I can't
acquire. I've the money and the clothes and the individuality. But
there's a simplicity about her, a directness, that comes from years of
association with things I haven't had. Before I came here, I thought
money could buy anything. But it can't. Mary Ballard couldn't be
anything else. And I--I can be anything from a siren to a soubrette,
but I can't be a lady--not the kind that you are--and Mary Ballard."

Saying which, the tropic creature in flamingo red sat down beside the
cooing dove, and continued:

"You were right just now, when you said that the un-average man would
love Mary Ballard. Porter Bigelow loves her, and he tops all the other
men I've met. And he'd never love me. He will laugh with me and joke
with me, and if he wasn't in love with Mary, he might flirt with
me--but I'm not his kind--and he knows it."

She sighed and shrugged her shoulders. "There are other fish in the
sea, of course, and Porter Bigelow is Mary's. But I give you my word,
Leila Dick, that when I catch sight of his blessed red head towering
above the others--like a lion-hearted Richard, I can't see anybody
else."

For the first time since she had known her, Leila was drawn to the
other by a feeling of sympathetic understanding.

"Are you in love with him, Lilah?" she asked; timidly.

Lilah stood up, stretching her hands above her head. "Who knows?
Being in love and loving--perhaps they are different things, duckie."

With which oracular remark she adjourned to her dressing-room, where,
in long rows, her lovely gowns were hung.

Leila, left alone, picked up a magazine on the table beside her glanced
through it and laid it down; picked a bonbon daintily out of a big box
and ate it; picked up a photograph----

"Mousie," said Lilah, coming back, several minutes later, "what makes
you so still? Did you find a book?"

No, Leila had not found a book, and the photograph was back where she
had first discovered it, face downward under the box of chocolates.
And she was now standing by the window, her veil drawn tightly over her
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