"I know, you would go in for military training for women, and that sort of thing. There's a woman over there asking for more olives, and she's eaten a plate full of them already." "They're as big as hen's eggs anyhow," Caroline groaned, "and almost as extravagant. I don't see how Nancy'll go through the first month at this rate. There she comes now. Doesn't she look nice in that color of green?" "How do you like my party?" Nancy asked, slipping into the empty chair between Dick and Billy; "isn't the food good and nourishing, and aren't there a lot of nice-looking people here?" "Very much, and it is, and there are," Dick answered with affectionate eyes on her. "The salad is alligator pear served in half sections, with French dressing," she said dreamily. "I'm too happy to eat, but I'll have some with you. Look at them all, don't they look relaxed and soothed and refreshed? Every individual has a perfectly balanced ration of the most superlatively good quality, slowly beginning to assimilate within him." "I don't see many respectable working girls," Billy said. "There are though,--from the different shops and offices on the avenue. There is a contingent from the Columbia summer school coming to-morrow evening. This group coming in now is newspaper people." "Who's the fellow sitting over in the corner with that Vie de Bohême hat? He looks familiar, but I can't seem to place him." "The man in black with the mustache?" Dick asked. "He's an artist, pretty well known. That impressionistic chap--I can't think of his name--that had that exhibition at the Palsifer galleries." "Does he sell?" Caroline asked. "No, they say he's awfully poor, refuses to paint down to the public taste. What the deuce is his name--oh! I know, Collier Pratt--do you know him, Nancy? Lived in Paris always till the war. He'll appreciate Ritz cooking at Riggs' prices if anybody will." Nancy looked fixedly at the small side-table where the stranger had just placed himself as if he were etched upon the whiteness of the wall behind him. He sat erect and brooding,--his dark, rather melancholy eyes staring straight ahead, and a slight frown wrinkling his really fine forehead. He wore an Inverness cape slung over one shoulder. "Looks like one of Rembrandt's portraits of himself," Caroline suggested. "He looks like a brigand," Betty said. "Nancy's struck dumb with the privilege of adding fuel to a flame of genius like that. Wake up and eat your peach Melba, Nancy." Nancy started, and took perfunctorily the spoon that Molly was holding out to her, which she forgot to lift to her lips even after it was freighted with its first delicious mouthful. "I dreamed about that man," she said. CHAPTER IV CINDERELLA