Marjorie achieved a dress at once simple and good with great facility by not asking the price until it was all over. (There is no half-success with dinner-dresses, either the thing is a success and inestimable, or not worth having at any price at all.) It was blue with a thread of gold, and she had a necklace of blueish moonstones, gold-set, and her hair ceased to be copper and became golden, and her eyes unfathomable blue. She was radiant with health and happiness, no one else there had her clear freshness, and her manner was as restrained and dignified and ready as a proud young wife's can be. Everyone seemed to like her and respect her and be interested in her, and Trafford kissed her flushed cheek in the hansom as they came home again and crowned her happiness. It had been quite a large party, and really much more splendid and brilliant than anything she had ever seen before. There had been one old gentleman with a coloured button and another with a ribbon; there had been a countess with historical pearls, and half-a-dozen other people one might fairly call distinguished. The house was tremendous in its way, spacious, rich, glowing with lights, abounding in vistas and fine remote backgrounds. In the midst of it all she had a sudden thrill at the memory that less than a year ago she had been ignominiously dismissed from the dinner-table by her father for a hiccup.... A few days after Aunt Plessington suddenly asked the Traffords to one of her less important but still interesting gatherings; not one of those that swayed the world perhaps, but one which Marjorie was given to understand achieved important subordinate wagging. Aunt Plessington had not called, she explained in her note, because of the urgent demands the Movement made upon her time; it was her wonderful hard-breathing way never to call on anyone, and it added tremendously to her reputation; none the less it appeared--though here the scrawl became illegible--she meant to shove and steer her dear niece upward at a tremendous pace. They were even asked to come a little early so that she might make Trafford's acquaintance.