But Mrs. Pleyden looked less placid than usual as she stood by the door receiving late guests while a coloratura warbled. Her eyes wandered to Polly, who sat in a niche by the chimneypiece with Dr. Pelham. Her brilliant restless daughter merely blew rings in her face when, forgetting diplomacy, she remonstrated or probed lightly; and refused to discuss the subject. Mrs. Pleyden was not as worldly as the mothers of her own youth but she drew the line at obscure surgeons whose parents she had never met. That he was the highly esteemed associate of Dr. Gaunt, whose mother wore a tiara in the front row, and whose wife was her intimate friend, in no way tempered the misfortune that threatened the house of Pleyden. He might be a famous surgeon himself twenty years hence but at present he was a nobody; and although girls sometimes married young men obliged to toil and economize, and were content to live in unfashionable neighborhoods, saved from complete ignominy by one servant, it was always with a husband of their own class, and their position was still as assured as that of their friends with spectacular American incomes. But Mrs. Pleyden had seen enough of Geoffrey Pelham to comprehend that if Polly married him she would drop out. It was only too plain that society bored him, and if her dainty and fastidious daughter accomplished what looked to be a fell purpose her flat in the Bronx would be as disconcerting to her old friends as that dreadful house on States Avenue, Atlantic City. Her father would be willing to give her a large allowance, but Pelham was not the man to live on his wife, and she knew that he contributed to the support of his mother and sister. The future looked dark and dubious. She had seen Polly interested before but never serious. And then she noticed that Pelham, whose ear was bent to Polly’s irreverent whisperings, was looking at Gita Bylant. Staring at her. His eyes looked bedazzled. She was convinced that he had not yet asked Polly to marry him, and although he was obviously attracted by her, he had never, to Mrs. Pleyden’s experienced eye, given the impression of a man desperately in love. She had concluded that the pursuit was Polly’s, but it was a conclusion that had given her little solace. Polly was born to have her way. But at this moment her heart gave a throb of mingled hope and resentment. Although she disapproved of Gita more than ever, since that refractory charge preferred the society of what her own set persisted in calling bohemians, to the exalted circles into which, true to her promise, she had launched her, the creature might have her uses; and if she chose to exert her wiles on Geoffrey Pelham, so much the better. Eustace was able to take care of himself. But Gita, after a smile and nod to both Polly and Dr. Pelham, had devoted herself raptly to the music.