She got her taxicab on the other side and leaned back, catching frequent glances of admiration, and rode pleasurably to the regal up-town hotel which was the home of Miss Martha Wallingford, while in the city. She, upon her arrival, entered the hotel with an air which caused a stir among bell boys. Then she entered a reception room and sat down, disposing herself with slow grace. Margaret gazed about her and waited. There were only three people in the room, one man and two ladies, one quite young--a mere girl--the other from the resemblance and superior age, evidently her mother. The man was young and almost vulgarly well-groomed. He had given a glance at Margaret as she entered, a glance of admiration tempered with the consideration that in spite of her grace and beauty, she was probably older than himself. Then he continued to gaze furtively at the young girl who sat demurely, with eyes downcast beneath a soft, wild tangle of dark hair, against which some pink roses and a blue feather on her hat showed fetchingly. She was very well dressed, evidently a well-guarded young thing from one of the summer colonies. The mother, high corseted, and elegant in dark blue lines, which made only a graceful concession to age, without fairly admitting it, never allowed one glance of the young man's to escape her. She also saw her slender young daughter with every sense in her body and mind. Margaret looked away from them. The elder woman had given her costume an appreciative, and herself a supercilious glance, which had been met with one which did not seem to recognise her visibility. Margaret was not easily put down by another woman. She stared absently at the ornate and weary decorations of the room. It was handsome, but tiresome, as everybody who entered realised, and as, no doubt, the decorator had found out. It was a ready-made species of room, with no heart in it, in spite of the harmonious colour scheme and really artistic detail.