!"--_she_ was now dismissing _him_--"because, although
I am convalescent, I am a little tired, and Nina's maid is waiting to
tuck me in."

"So you send me away?"

"_Send_ you--" She hesitated, delightfully confused in the reversal of
roles--not quite convinced of this new power which, of itself, had
seemed to invest her with authority over man. "Yes," she said, "I must
send you away." And her heart beat a little faster in her uncertainty as
to his obedience--then leaped in triumph as he rose with a reluctance
perfectly visible.

"To-morrow," she said, "I am to drive for the first time. In the evening
I may be permitted to go to the Grays' mid-Lent dance--but not to dance
much. Will you be there? Didn't they ask you? I shall tell Suddy Gray
what I think of him--I don't care whether it's for the younger set
or not! Goodness me, aren't you as young as anybody! . . . Well,
then! . . . So we won't see each other to-morrow. And the day after
that--oh, I wish I had my engagement list. Never mind, I will telephone
you when I'm to be at home--or wherever I'm going to be. But it won't be
anywhere in particular because it's Lent, of course. . . . Good-night,
Captain Selwyn; you've been very sweet to me, and I've enjoyed every
single instant."

When he had gone she rose, a trifle excited in the glow of abstract
happiness, and walked erratically about, smiling to herself, touching
and rearranging objects that caught her attention. Then an innocent
instinct led her to the mirror, where she stood a moment looking back
into the lovely reflected face with its disordered hair.

"After all," she said, "I'm not as aged as I pretended. . . . I wonder
if he is laughing at me now. . . . But he was very, very nice to
me--wherever he has gone in quest of that 'good time' and to talk his
man-talk to other men--"

In a reverie she stood at the mirror considering her own flushed cheeks
and brilliant eyes.

"What a curiously interesting man he is," she murmured naively. "I shall
telephone him that I am not going to that _mi-careme_ dance. . . .
Besides, Suddy Gray is a bore with the martyred smile he's been
cultivating. . . . As though a happy girl would dream of marrying
anybody with all life before her to learn important things in! . . .
And that dreadful, downy Scott Innis--trying to make me listen
to _him_! . . . until I was ashamed to be alive! And Bradley
Harmon--ugh!--and oh, that mushy widower, Percy Draymore, who got hold
of my a