She was a little woman--half girl, not more than twenty-two. She was rather plump, but gently so and with grace. It was a quality, invisible like perfume, that came from her. Under her prettiness a sturdy note. She must be capable. Her eyes were a light blue: Cornelia saw them in the candles she had lighted: but her mouth was straight, long, even, and her chin had strength in its womanly rondure. Looking at her, Cornelia felt the great good health of this woman. Her career told something, but what Cornelia’s sharpened nerves now gave her told more in an instant. Miss Daindrie was a college graduate, and a student in medicine. She was going to employ her science not in practice but in expert work among the children and mothers of the City. This sounded serious almost to forbidding. But the girl, sitting quiet and drinking her tea with a sober head, as if this were a meal, not a convention, was different from her work. She was at once lovely with youth and indestructibly firm with a quaint mother-sense. Her stalwartness was about her girlhood, protecting it, as her strong full body was about the dance of her eyes. Cornelia mused away.... She need not worry about her guests. Mr. Purze had aroused Doctor Westerling to talk. He was saying serious things about the advance of Science in America, as compared to Europe. He had spent four years in Paris, Vienna, Berlin. It was plain he knew. Whatever he said he knew. He had taken up Mr. Purze’s challenge, “We are children in art,” as one would take up a problem to be answered. “In America,” he said, “our art is Science.” Cornelia watched him detachedly. He was talking really to impress Miss Daindrie. There was a caress in his voice as he said Science. What did it mean to him, that had a body and soul? He loved Miss Daindrie. Did she love him? No. Would she? Cornelia leaned back in her chair. For the first time, she noticed the tilt of Miss Daindrie’s head on her lovely neck: the whimsical curve of the cheekbone and the clear, almost protrusive outline of the jaw. There must be something Irish about her. Her father--Judson Daindrie--he was Scotch.... Doubtless her mother. Also there was something romantic. A pinch of romance, like a pinch of explosive powder. She was steady: her thrust in life was sure and long. This was one reason why the assertive and uncertain Doctor loved her. But in order to set her off, that pinch of powder. Did the Jewish scholar, exact and intransigent, hold the needed spark? Cornelia thought not. How those blue eyes could gleam! Could they gleam for him? Of course, she pondered, she might marry him, unlighted. He must have a pounding, indefatigable way. Look at him driving his point into Mr. Purze who was really not so very concerned. Yes: she might marry him. If no one else touched off the powder. If she remained unaware of it. She might go unmellowed through life, unfertilized. Such things happened. It would be a pity....