“Are you going to stay in this country long?” he began. The question sounded supremely casual, but it meant a great deal to him. He was haunted by a fear that she would depart suddenly, and he would never see her again. She smiled and looked away for a moment before replying, as though perhaps this was not exactly what she had expected him to say. “I don’t know. Gordon wants mother and me to go back East this fall, but I don’t want to go and mother doesn’t want to leave Gordon alone.… We haven’t decided. Maybe I won’t go till next year.” “I suppose you’ll go to college won’t you?” “No; I wanted to go to Vassar and then study art, but mother says college spoils a girl for society. She thinks the way the Vassar girls walk is perfectly dreadful. I offered to go right on walking the same way, but she said anyway college makes girls so frightfully broad-minded.…” Ramon laughed. “What will you do then?” “I’ll come out.” “Out of what?” “Make my d�but, don’t you know?” “O, yes.” “In New York. I have an aunt there. She knows all the best people, mother says.” “What happens after you come out?” “You get married if anybody will have you. If not, you sort of fade away and finally go into uplift work about your fourth season.” “But of course, you’ll get married. I bet you’ll marry a millionaire.” “I don’t know. Mother wants me to marry a broker. She says the big financial houses in New York are conducted by the very best people. But Gordon thinks I ought to marry a professional man—a doctor or something. He thinks brokers are vulgar. He says money isn’t everything.” “What do you think?” “I haven’t a thought to my name. All my thinking has been done for me since infancy. I don’t know what I want, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t get it if I did.… Come on. They’ve been dancing for ten minutes. If we stay here any longer it’ll be a scandal.” She rose and started for the hall. He suddenly realized that his long-sought opportunity was slipping away from him. He caught her by the hand. “Don’t go, please. I want to tell you something.” She met his hand with a fair grip, and pulled him after her with a laugh. “Some other time,” she promised. CHAPTER VIII In most of their social diversions the town folk tended always more and more to ape the ways of the East. Local colour, they thought, was all right in its place, which was a curio store or a museum, but they desired their town to be modern and citified, so that the wealthy eastern health-seeker would find it a congenial home. The scenery and the historic past were recognized as assets, but they should be the background for a life of “culture, refinement and modern convenience” as the president of the Chamber of Commerce was fond of saying.