"I shall never feel as young as that again. Nor will any girl who was merely sixteen at the beginning of the war ever be the same as your care-free young ladies here. I sit in the restaurants and watch them with amazement--often with anger. What right have they . . . however . . . as for myself I shall not reenter the world for any but the object I have just mentioned. Luncheons! Dinners! Balls! I was surfeited before the war. And I have forgotten persiflage, small talk. I am told that Americans avoid serious topics in Society. I, alas, have become very serious." She swept her favored guests with a disarming smile. They understood. There was no sting in her words for them. Clavering spoke up eagerly. "Why should you bore yourself with social functions? If you want to raise money for the children I will not only start a drive in my column but take you to call on several powerful editors--or bring them here," he added hastily at the look of amazement in her eyes, "and they will be more than willing to help you. They have only to meet you----" "That is all very well," interrupted Judge Trent, who, like the other elderly gentlemen, was glaring at the famous young columnist who daily laid down the law to his admiring readers. "But to raise money in large amounts you've got to have a committee, and no committee is of any use--for this sort of thing--without the names of fashionable women who are as well known to our democratic public, that daily devours the society columns, as the queens of the movies." "Well--well--I do not know. I must think. It is not a step to take lightly." Clavering intercepted a flash between her eyes and Judge Trent's and the old gentleman tightened his lips in a self-conscious smirk as he bent over his fish. "Damn him!" thought Clavering. "He knows the whole truth and is laughing at us in his sleeve." Madame Zattiany had turned the subject gracefully to European politics, and he watched her with a detached air. Trent's attitude toward her amused him. It was more deferential and admiring than infatuated. . . . Whatever her charm, she was no longer in her first youth, and only unripe fruit could sting that senescent palate. But the other two! Clavering smiled sardonically. Dinwiddie, hanging on her every word, was hardly eating. He was a very handsome man, in spite of his shining pate and heavy white moustache. His features were fine and regular, his eyes, if rather prominent, were clear and blue, his skin clean, and his figure but little amplified. He was only sixty-two. Osborne, who looked barely fifty, was personable and clever enough to attract any woman. He, too, was astonishingly indifferent to the excellent dinner, and both these gentlemen had reached an age, where, if wary of excess for reasons of vanity and interior comfort, they derived their sincerest enjoyment at the table.