It was odd: during her drive with Mrs. Minity, at Madame Lanska’s, and again at the Rectory, Kate Clephane had meant to proclaim her great news--and she had not yet breathed a word of it. The fact was, it was too great; too precious to waste on Mrs. Minity’s inattention, too sacred to reveal to Madame Lanska’s bridge-players, and too glorious to overwhelm those poor women at the Rectory with. And now, in the glare and clatter of the Casino, with the Sids and Harrys exchanging winks, and the Mrs. Sids and Harrys craning fat necks to see the last new cocotte, or the young Prince about whom there were such awful stories--here, of all places, to unbare her secret, name her daughter: how could she ever have thought it possible? Only toward the end of the long deafening dinner, when Marcia and Mrs. Sid began to make plans for a week at Monte Carlo, and she found herself being impressed into the party (as she had, so often and so willingly, before) did Mrs. Clephane suddenly find herself assuming the defensive. “You can’t? Or you _won’t_? Now, you Kate-cat you,” Marcia threatened her with a scented cigarette, “own up now--what’s doing? What you onto this time? Ain’t she naughty? _We_ ain’t grand enough for her, girls!” And then, suddenly, at a sign from Horace, and lowering her voice, but not quite enough to make the communication private: “See here, Kate darling--of course, you know, _as our guest_: why, of course, naturally.” While, on the other side, Mrs. Sid drawled: “What I want to know is: where else _can_ anybody go at this season?” Mrs. Clephane surveyed her calmly. “To New York--at least I can.” They all screamed it at her at once: “N’York?” and again she dropped the two syllables slowly from disdainful lips. “Well, I never! Whaffor, though?” questioned Horace from the depths of a fresh bumper. Mrs. Clephane swept the table with a cool eye. “Business--family business,” she said. “_Criky!_” burst from Horace. And: “Say, Sid, a drop of _fine_, just to help us over the shock? Well, here’s to the success of the lady’s Family Business!” he concluded with a just-perceptible wink, emptying his champagne goblet and replacing it by the big bubble-shaped liqueur glass into which a thoughtful waiter had already measured out the proper quantity of the most expensive _fine_. III. As Kate Clephane stood on deck, straining her eyes at the Babylonian New York which seemed to sway and totter toward her menacingly, she felt a light hand on her arm. “Anne!” She barely suppressed the questioning lift of her voice; for the length of a heart-beat she had not been absolutely certain. Then ... yes, there was her whole youth, her whole married past, in that small pale oval--her own hair, but duskier, stronger; something of her smile too, she fancied; and John Clephane’s straight rather heavy nose, beneath old Mrs. Clephane’s awful brows.