Mary read this portion of the letter over twice, the serenity of her face routed by a frown. Of course she had expected to meet this man in the future, indeed had had a very definite idea of playing his cards immediately upon her return to Vienna. But that he should come here! Now. That was another matter. She had succeeded in dismissing the past, and she resented this dark reminder. Well, she could refuse to see him, and possibly he would not arrive until after her departure. And then she sighed again. The futility of attempting to travel through even one brief cross-section of life on a straight line! Her luncheon was brought up to her and when it was finished she answered her letters and settled down to the latest novel of one of her new friends. But Gora Dwight was announced and she put the book aside with a sensation of pleasant anticipation. She liked no one better, of her new American acquaintances, and had made no objection when Clavering had asked her to let him confide his engagement to Gora Dwight alone. He felt that he owed her the compliment (how he was to obtain the forgiveness of Mrs. Oglethorpe was a thought he dared not dwell on), and Mary, little disposed as she was to intimacies, had felt a certain release in speaking of her engagement to another woman. XLI Gora was looking her best in a smart spring frock of brown tweed with a drooping red feather on her hat, whose pointed brim almost but not quite obscured one eye. The two women greeted each other with something like affection, and after the usual feminine preliminaries were over, Gora exclaimed with enthusiasm: "I have come to tell you how really wonderful Lee's play is, and to say that I could have shaken him for not letting you hear it, but he seems determined that it shall burst upon you in the unmitigated glory of a first-night performance." Madame Zattiany smiled, very slightly. "Yes, he made a great point of that. I could only let him have his way. He is very fond of having his way, is he not?" "Well, we've spoiled him, you see. And those of us who have heard the play are more excited than we have been over anything for a long time. Those that haven't are not far behind. I believe there is a dinner or a party in his honor projected for every night for weeks to come." Madame Zattiany raised her eyebrows in genuine surprise. "Isn't it rather unusual, that--to fete an author before he has made his debut?" "It is, rather. But in this case it's different. We've waited so long for Clavey to do the big thing that we must let off steam at once." "He certainly seems to be a tremendous favorite among you. Several of his friends were here at dinner the other night--I was so sorry you were unable to come--and really they seemed to be able to talk of nothing else. They are all very charming to me now, but I am wondering if they will be more than amiably interested in me when I am merely the wife of a famous playwright?"