He followed her into the reception room, a place rendered comfortless by the decorator and furnisher, and Mrs. Craighill resumed her seat in the least forbidding of its chairs. She suffered Wayne to mitigate its severe lines with pillows. “There are better loafing places in the house,” he observed, as he sat down opposite her and felt for his cigarette case. “No smoking! You can’t get it out of these draperies.” “You’ll have to this time.” He dropped the match stick into a Sevres urn at his elbow and looked her over. “The Colonel’s been at it ever since dinner?” “Since eight-thirty by the stair clock.” “You might have gone to bed.” “Oh, yes, there’s always that; but it’s a bore, going to bed right after dinner. I’ve never been used to it. And besides, you never can tell: I might have been needed; the door might have swung open at any minute and a demand made for a date--at just what hour George crossed the Delaware, and whether it was real or stage ice they put into history so the Father of his Country would look well lithographed in the boat with his cloak pulled round his shoulders.” “You needn’t trouble about being called in for consultation. When the oration is all done you will be given a chance to attend a dress rehearsal--or two of them. I used to hear those things; but now you’ve cut me out.” This was the first time since the afternoon of her arrival that Wayne had seen his stepmother alone. He had, in fact, seen little of her. They met usually at the breakfast table, but Wayne was never home at midday and as often as not he dined at the Club. A series of dinners and receptions in her honour had engaged Mrs. Craighill’s attention; her coming had forced the season and these functions were now lagging. Her presentation to the society of the Greater City had, however, been accomplished; and she was now woven into the social fabric, one of its bright figures, discernible to any eye. She was Mrs. Craighill, a sufficient answer to any inquiry. She had met nearly everyone it was necessary to meet; even the small band of recalcitrants who had sworn that she should never cross their thresholds had sat with her at other people’s tables, and taken her hand at larger functions whose charging battalions were recruited from the blue-book. “What have you been doing?” she asked, after a moment. “I’m afraid to tell you; you would never believe it of me. I’ve been out to Ironstead seeing how the other half amuses itself in my old friend Paddock’s parish house. There was a boxing-match; a girl recited ‘Curfew Shall Not Ring To-night,’ or enough of it, then a social mix-up with ice cream and coffee.” “Something new, isn’t it, your going in for that sort of thing?” “Rather a new shot; but not so tiresome as you might imagine. As a social diversion it would compare favourably with shows I’ve attended in this neighbourhood.”