He answered automatically this question, that had of late begun to weary him, acceding good-naturedly to Mrs. Fitz Hugh’s sweeping declaration of her passion for music in general; but he was unhappily aware that Florence Essington had teasingly assumed the remote but interested air of a spectator at what threatened to be a tête-à-tête. Nay, more: her eyes laughed at his attempts to draw her back. He had the aggrieved feeling of a child whose game has been spoiled. Well, if Florence wouldn’t play, neither would he. But he was pleasant about it. He slid easily from good-humored flattery to genial silence, from genial silence to the smoking-car. Cissy watched his departure with a pettish mouth. But when the sharp snapping of the vestibule door had shut the two women in together she extended her small, plump feet with a luxurious stretch, and turned to Mrs. Essington with a “Well, my dear!” that implied, “At last!” She created the impression that she had lived only for this moment. Florence seemed to see herself exhibited as Cissy’s sole confidante. “You know,” Cissy began, “it was so sweet of Emma Budd to ask me for the week’s end, though of course I don’t hunt—but with poor Freddy on his back since the pony-races, and all the horrid fuss with the plumbing—and the lawsuit, I’ve been really too anxious for pleasure.” She passed a plump hand over an unlined brow. “But when Emma rang up yesterday to beg, and happened to let drop _your_ name, I said, ‘If Mrs. Essington is going I really will make _one_ effort.’” She beamed with candor. Florence’s smile surmised that the name for which the effort had been made was more probably Fox Longacre’s. But Cissy’s complacence was impervious. “It was a delightful surprise to hear you _were_ going! You come to us so little!” she lamented. “Who could resist the country in September?” Florence felt unable to add amenities to the already overcharged atmosphere. “Oh, of course! I just _crave_ the country!” Cissy agreed. “Then the hunting—” Florence continued, aware that quite different reasons were expected of her—“Mrs. Budd makes her parties interesting with their variety.” “Oh, yes—variety,” Cissy cut in. “Emma just craves it! Did you know she’s asked D. O. Holden—and he’s going?” At Cissy’s round-eyed pause, Florence felt an inclination to laugh. Variety seemed to her the last word reminiscent of Holden. Looking back over the past six months, he appeared to her the one strong, unvarying, dominant, reiterated note in her resumed American experiences. “Really!” she managed with gravity. “Really!” Cissy echoed impressively. “But why _such_ a man, who doesn’t care for anything but railroads, should be going to Emma, who doesn’t care for anything but marrying Julia—Of course”—her shallow eyes endeavored to plumb Mrs. Essington’s—“he’s going for something in particular.” She topped it off with her laugh, that seemed to fill her thick throat.