We all thought of Eva, today. “It works both ways,” said Florence fairly. “The unfortunates who take us over poison us. Why do they ever want us?” she pursued pensively. “We never lapse into nice comfortable bodies around the home fireside.” James Pomeroy remarked that every now and then he, on his part, almost bolted in the other direction. “There’s Priscilla Swords: upon my word, I have to hold myself back from bolting in her direction.” He expounded his reasons for never actually bolting to her. He had said to her that he was about to give her up as hopeless; he had said: “I’ve taken you everywhere; I’ve arranged for you to meet the most famous people in New York; and what impression has it made on you? Not a dent!” Priscilla Swords had given him her wide smile. She had teeth, he said, that were purely white. “But I do appreciate it, Jimmie. I think they are very nice.” He said that at this there was nothing to do but break into a genuine groan. “Oh, God, Priscilla! That’s the one thing they aren’t!” We were laughing over this when the Van Suydams walked in; the smile in Eva’s eyes as they met mine was part of my amusement and at the same time apart from it. She paused long enough to whisper to me: “She has put on her diamond earrings!” The earrings winked merrily as the elderly lady turned her head. They were large single stones pulling down by their weight the lobe of the ear. On her very small hands heavy diamond rings glittered, and on her bosom sparkled an imperious diamond brooch of the extinct sunburst design. Hooked into her black velvet creation with the hereditary lace after-thought, she trod the measure of a lady’s entrance. I heard her say to Charles Glidden, who, somewhat dashed, met her as she advanced: “A small glass of sherry, if you please.” She observed the party with a detached interest worthy of her host. “Times are changing; and I hope I am not narrow-minded,” she observed graciously. The _lorgnette_ came into play. She appeared to be indifferent to the fact that we watched her as she dissected us; she might have been oblivious of it. Florence nudged me: “Too bad! And on top of that, too. But here is, at last, the great unknown.” The exalted one swept into the room on Glidden’s arm. She was at once correctly arranged in a strategic position, and we began filing past. Authors buzzed, near to the celebrity and watching her, a gigantic hive of industrious bees. She was encased, as in a cuirass, with the aura of undisputed fame. Armed with her knowledge that nowhere in the world of the English language was she unknown, she beamed, as she could afford to beam, on her court. She was kind, as the great are kind. And Glidden smiled at his prize, and at his party, and enjoyed a three-ring circus in his mind. Someone said to Florence and me: “She’s a bit old-fashioned in her style, but she can run for a while longer on her prestige, of course. The old war horses can’t be killed off, worse luck.”