What was the perfect intonation which gave Mrs. Gates the idea that Fliss’s mother had been her social guidance until the hour of death? She smiled at Fliss kindly, pretty Fliss who had modified her mourning so that most people did not guess it was mourning and who stood before her now, swathed in soft black furs. Her references to Fliss after that were of the kind which helped immensely. On the night of the little dinner Matthew looked at his wife in unmixed admiration. She had come into the pretty drawing-room a little before him and he found her there. To-night, too, she was dressed in black, black velvet which clung gently to her hips and emphasized her girlishness, yet giving her an air of dignity which he had never seen before. Her hair was changed from its Carrington arrangement. The black bang which she had clung to so long, because it was so becoming, had been sacrificed and her hair drawn straight back, showing the perfect white forehead and making her face seem more oval than before. The softest moon-white earrings and no other jewels at all. “You’re lovely, Fliss.” “I’m right,” answered Fliss, with assurance. “At least I’m right as far as looks go. And the table is right. Come see it.” She led him into the paneled dining-room, where the mahogany caught the light from tall, unshaded wax tapers in their silver holders and the electric candles on the wall. The center of the table was bright with marigolds forced to a hothouse blossoming, setting off the silver and white and crystal of the whole. “Is it right? Does it look splendid? No, not splendid, but as if we’d been giving dinners like this for years--as if our grandfathers had been doing it, too? No Peachtree or Carrington flats in the background?” He laughed at her. “It’s so stunning, Fliss, that it almost makes me feel a bit guilty. We mustn’t get so greedy for this sort of thing that we forget what I came down here for.” “You remember all that,” broke in Fliss, returning to the drawing-room. “I’ll remember this part.” Matthew listened to her as she stood greeting her guests with that little air of dignified deference and again as she sat opposite him, but rather far distant, listening, watching, always at work. “Not many of your colleagues bring such young and beautiful women to Washington as you did,” commented his neighbor on the left. Matthew smiled appreciatively. “My wife may be my greatest contribution to Washington.” “We hear good things of you already,” said the lady, who was elderly and kindly and had a fine Philadelphia manner. “But one of the best things we can hear is to hear of such devotion. It is good to see a man in love with his wife these days, Mr. Allenby.” “Do you think it’s so rare?” “I think we are creating an atmosphere in which it is harder to preserve simple emotions. I want to know your wife better and find out how she manages to be so skillful in so many things at such an early age.”