Mrs. Primer let herself go a little further. “Oh, give us an equal chance,” she laughed, “and we can always take care of ourselves, and something more. They say,” she added, “that the young married women now have all the attention that girls could wish.” “H'm!” said Mr. Mavering, frowning. “I think I should be tempted to box my boy's ears if I saw him paying another man's wife attention.” “What a Roman father!” cried Mrs. Pasmer, greatly amused, and letting herself go a little further yet. She said to herself that she really must find out who this remarkable Mr. Mavering was, and she cast her eye over the hall for some glimpse of the absent Munt, whose arm she meant to take, and whose ear she meant to fill with questions. But she did not see him, and something else suggested itself. “He probably wouldn't let you see him, or if he did, you wouldn't know it.” “How not know it?” Mrs. Primer did not answer. “One hears such dreadful things. What do you say--or you'll think I'm a terrible gossip--” “Oh no;” said Mr. Mavering, impatient for the dreadful thing, whatever it was. Mrs. Primer resumed: “--to the young married women meeting last winter just after a lot of pretty girls had came out, and magnanimously resolving to give the Buds a chance in society?” “The Buds?” “Yes, the Rose-buds--the debutantes; it's an odious little word, but everybody uses it. Don't you think that's a strange state of things for America? But I can't believe all those things,” said Mrs. Pasmer, flinging off the shadow of this lurid social condition. “Isn't this a pretty scene?” “Yes, it is,” Mr. Mavering admitted, withdrawing his mind gradually from a consideration of Mrs. Pasmer's awful instances. “Yes!” he added, in final self-possession. “The young fellows certainly do things in a great deal better style nowadays than we used to.” “Oh yes, indeed! And all those pretty girls do seem to be having such a good time!” “Yes; they don't have the despised and rejected appearance that you'd like to have one believe.” “Not in the least!” Mrs. Pasmer readily consented. “They look radiantly happy. It shows that you can't trust anything that people say to you.” She abandoned the ground she had just been taking without apparent shame for her inconsistency. “I fancy it's pretty much as it's always been: if a girl is attractive, the young men find it out.” “Perhaps,” said Mr. Mavering, unbending with dignity, “the young married women have held another meeting, and resolved to give the Buds one more chance.” “Oh, there are some pretty mature Roses here,” said Mrs. Pasmer, laughing evasively. “But I suppose Class Day can never be taken from the young girls.”