y."

VIII

THE RECEPTION

Going down the crowded steps into the crowded drawing-room, Winthrop
Laine slowly made his way through the door to the place where Mr. and
Mrs. Taillor and their daughter were receiving their guests and
passing them on with a rapidity that would have been creditable to
the custodian of a game of human roulette, and as he reached them his
name was called with uncomfortable clearness.

"Well, this is a surprise!" Both of Mrs. Taillor's hands held
Laine's. "But commend me to a person who knows when to change his
mind. Jessica, you should feel honored. Awfully good of you to
come! How do you do, Mrs. Haislip?" And Laine, too, was passed on,
and a moment later found himself in a corner where he could watch the
door and all who came in.

What was he here for? He didn't know. The air was heavy with
perfume. In the distance music reached him faintly, and the throb
and stir and color and glow for some minutes interested him as he
glanced around the handsome room with its massed palms, its wealth of
flowers, its brilliant lights, and streams of gorgeously gowned women
and prosperous-looking men, and then he wondered what had made him
start anything of this sort again. To come had been a sudden
decision. Long ago the dreariness of functions such as these had
caused their giving-up, but a fancy to look once more upon one had
possessed him unaccountably, and he had come.

Up-stairs in the men's room his reappearance had been banteringly
commented on, and with good-natured hand-shaking he had been welcomed
back; but down here many faces were strange and figures
unrecognizable; and with something of shock he realized how few were
the years necessary to change the personnel of any division of
humanity. The heat was intense, and moving farther back toward a
screen of palms near a half-open window, he pulled one slightly
forward that he might see and not be seen, and again watched each
newcomer with mild speculation as to whether he or she were known or
not.

For a while it was puzzling, this continuing arrival of new faces,
with here and there one he knew well or slightly; but gradually its
effect chilled, and he was wondering if he could get away when he
heard his name called.

"Winthrop Laine! Of all people!" Miss French held out her hand.
"From what loophole were you watching this passing show for man's
derision given? May I come in?"

"You may."

Miss French moved behind