“Good Heavens, any one would think they were yours,” said Jenny. “I wouldn’t spend my life worrying about other people’s cups--or bothering about their kids either. You’re a fool, Ellen, and you’ll never get anywhere. Of course I don’t know what Mrs. Harrison pays you (this lack of confidence was a rankling thing), but if it’s a cent less than sixty-five you’re stung!” “No!” said Ellen, who was banking seventy-five dollars a month. “Yes, ma’am!” said Jenny, and banged another cup. The Victrola started in the living-room, playing dance music. Jenny jazzed a bit. “Lord, why don’t they play it when they’re alone?” CHAPTER XIV Cecily started on a fairly determined round of gayety for a few weeks. She found it interesting at first and a little boring afterwards. It was very difficult for her to take or even pretend to take casual interest in people, and casual interest was all that society wanted of her. She was beautiful and had a charming manner. So much every one admitted. But she was a married woman with three children and the faint flavor of mystery which had made her so alluring before she had been married had gone. Of course she would consciously seek to charm no one, and her unconscious charm so definitely belonged to Dick Harrison that there was not much left for other men. She was not an invigorating presence or a stimulating companion unless she was really stirred to interest, and the net result was that Cecily found herself bored fairly often. Dick was not. He could still amuse himself greatly with a pretty girl, because she was pretty; he enjoyed dancing and being foolish. Unlike Cecily he did not always carry depths around with him. Cecily had to fit play into a scheme of life or she could not enjoy it. Dick just played. He appreciated that Cecily went about to please him, thanked her for it, always told her and always sincerely thought that she was the loveliest woman in any group and proceeded to have a good time. It was not quite subtle enough for Cecily. In the society into which she was thrown there was no one who marked the course of her development with interest. There were plenty of spectacular women doing interesting things, paradoxical things, and they saw in Cecily only passivity. The very domestic women who liked to talk babies and husbands rather intimately and eternally found her a little aloof and reserved; and those of a gayer, hedonistic type thought her overserious. She was an individual in an age in which individuality has to be advertised and she had not the faintest ability or desire to advertise herself. Older men and women said that she was a “good wife and mother”; women of her own age said she was “hard to get to know”; the younger girls said, like Jenny, “beautiful, but without pep.” So she was a little lonely.