Claire quitted the house at about four that afternoon, leaving behind her a few lines for Hollister. She chose to go on foot, the day being fair and pleasant. But she had scarcely got twenty yards away from her own stoop, when a carriage rattled past her, stopping suddenly. It was an equipage of great elegance. Claire soon perceived that it had stopped before the door from which she had just made exit. A footman sprang from the box, and immediately afterward what appeared to be more than a single card was handed him by an unseen occupant of the carriage. He then ascended the stoop of the Hollister abode, and sharply rang its bell. When his summons was answered the man held brief converse with Claire's new butler, and then presented, with a little bow, the card or cards intrusted to him. In a trice he was down the stoop again, and again at the carriage door. He did not seem to deliver any spoken message, but merely touched with one raised finger the rim of his cockaded hat. The carriage then started briskly off, without its high-throned driver paying the slightest heed to the fact that his liveried associate must scramble up to his side while the vehicle was in full motion. But this feat was accomplished with great ease; a mannerism of fashion demanded that the footman should so perform it; the approved effect of complete unconcern on the one hand and up-leaping agility on the other was never produced with more complete success. Claire had soon reëntered the house. She found two cards there, awaiting her inspection. One bore the name of Mrs. Van Horn, and one that of Mrs. Ridgeway Lee. "Delightful!" exclaimed Mrs. Diggs, on learning this occurrence from Claire herself, about a half hour later. "That visit, from those two women, has an enormous meaning. How sorry I am you were not at home. It would have been two against one, but I'm inclined to pay you the very marked compliment of saying that both your antagonists, deep and clever as they are, would have been no match for you. Well, hostilities are postponed. It's an armistice, not a truce. I insist, you see, on using the terms of warfare. How the battle will be fought is still a mystery, of course; but two potent truths simply _can't_ be overlooked. You refused Cornelia Van Horn's brother. That is one of them." "And the second?" asked Claire, a little absently, because she felt what answer would come. "The second? You've roused pointed admiration in the man whom Sylvia Lee worships." Claire looked at the speaker, and slowly shook her head. There was doubt, trouble, irresolution in her face; and now, when she spoke, her voice had a weary, almost plaintive note.