"Oh, I understand." Trudy took her cue quickly. "It is out of your province. You can't do big, gigantic things if you bother with doll-house notions. Now I really prefer--oh, far prefer--men like yourself, who----" Steve started the electric fan whirring. "Don't you ever long for camping trips or long horseback rides--something away from the everlasting fuss and feathers? I do. Would you believe it?" she fibbed glibly. Had Steve been seventy-five he might have believed her. But he merely nodded and said that if there was a draft from the fan she could sit outside. Piqued, Trudy turned to Mary Faithful. "Mary is a wonderful girl, isn't she? Of course you have a Gorgeous Girl, too--but she is for playtime. I should think it would mean a great deal to have Mary for your chief confidante--she is so good, and yet human and----" Steve stood up abruptly and wondered why no kind friend saw fit to enter at this moment. He would have really welcomed Trudy's husband. He looked at Trudy briefly, it did not take Steve long these days to look at Gorgeous Girls and Gorgeous Girl seconds and realize the whole story of their purpose and struggle--things, to have more gayly coloured or delicate coloured, gold, silver, velvet, carved, perfumed or whatever-the-mode-dictated things, flaunting these priceless sticks and stones in each other's faces with pretended friendship. He did not answer this last lead at conversation, but, not discouraged, Trudy went on down the list of her resources. "How is dear old Mr. Constantine?" "The same." Steve thanked fortune his father-in-law was paralyzed and could furnish a neutral topic of debate. "Poor dear. So hard for Bea, too. She says she will not do much this season. She feels if--if it should not be much longer, you understand"--a lowered tone of voice and a sigh--"that she wants to have nothing on her conscience. Still, a sick room is wearing, but of course love makes any task easy." Steve suppressed a smile. It was surprising how well this funny little person managed to ape the jargon and chatter of Bea's set as well as their mode of appearance. She did it mightily well, everything considered, and when she proceeded to offer to go and sit with the old dear or bring her game board and play with him Steve released a broad grin as he pictured Constantine in his helpless captive state welcoming Trudy as an entertainer about as much as he would have begged for a tete-a-tete with a lady major bent on conquest. "She would even marry him if she could dispose of Gay," he thought, and rightly, as he watched her. As she was telling him of the head-dress party she intended to give for Gay's birthday and how he must come because she wanted him to wear a pirate turban, in came Mary, much flurried over a mistake made in a shipment, and her nose guilty of a slight but unmistakable shine.