Gladys was standing on the steps. She held Muriel in her arms. On the younger girl’s face there was an almost passionate welcome, and she tried to hide her eagerness in laughter, chatting in graceful snatches over a thousand little nothings as the two girls went to their rooms. “Did Muriel know that there was no one there but themselves?—everybody was coming down to-morrow. Yes, that abominable little flirt, Edith le Mentier, and her husband with his exquisite stupidity, a cloak which covered all his other sins—in the eyes of his wife at least. Mary Huntly, too, not Tom—he couldn’t. These business men really worked; but Muriel was a business woman, wasn’t she—the dear Muriel.” Muriel declared she only worked for the sake of enjoying laziness. They went down to tea. “That doctor, too,” Gladys continued, “with an advanced sister with red hair, cigarette and a bull-dog—at least I think it’s a bull-dog.” “Of course it is,” laughed Muriel. “You must retain something, however far you advance, and the bull-dog does that for you.” “The doctor overworked, you know; and the sister’s devoted. Then there’s Captain Hurstly, of course!” “Why of course?” said Muriel quietly. “Oh, well——” Gladys stopped, “don’t you want him?” “No, my dear, I don’t.” “Your uncle thought——” “Oh, when he thinks,” laughed Muriel, lifting her shoulders. “And there’s a friend of his——” “My uncle’s?” “Silly!—Captain Hurstly’s—a Sir Somebody Bruce.” “Alec?” suggested Muriel, quietly selecting some seed-cake. “I know him well.” “Do you?” said Gladys, “I scarcely know him at all. What did you think of him?” Her little air of indifference was beautiful. Muriel sighed. “He’s like the rest,” she said wearily. “Splendid, capable, broad-shouldered and—useless. I think if I were a man like that I should use my talent as a good shot for personal purposes; it would seem to me less wasteful.” “Oh, but, Muriel, we girls we’re none of us any better. You, dearest, you’re different. And in America I was different too. There’s so little strain in being happy there—so little waste in pleasure. The rush of life, its width and lack of limits, is a continual occupation; but here there are too many women. Some of them must be old maids. It’s like the game of musical chairs. They none of them, you see, want to be left out, so they take the first place vacant. They have an eye on their opportunities; they make efforts to attain, and a masterly mamma backs them. When you come to think of it—their training, their suppression! You can’t wonder they take their first opening. But for women to be hunters—forgive the naked, cruel term, darling—is repulsive. Oh, if I had a daughter I should drown her, or bring her up to something more worth living for!” She walked about the room putting this and that to rights. The housemaid had done it before her, but the quick, nervous movements delivered her of the tension she seemed under.