"You mean after I've had all the bloom rubbed off, and men are forgetting to ask me to dance. Then I'll be much more likely to take what I can get. I want to marry with all the bloom on and all my illusions fresh." "But should you like to have them rubbed off by your husband? You've heard the old adage: 'marry in haste and repent--'" "I've been brought up on adages. They are called bromides now. As for illusions, everybody says they don't last anyway. I'd rather have them dispelled after a long wonderful honeymoon by a husband than by a lot of flirtations in a conservatory and in dark corners--" "Good heavens! Do you suppose that I flirted in a conservatory and in dark corners?" "I'll bet you didn't, but lots do. And in the haute noblesse, the ancient aristocracy! I've seen 'em." "It isn't possible that you--" "Oh, no, I love to dance too much. But I'm not easily shocked. I 'll tell you that right here. And I 'll tell you what I confessed to mother this morning." V When she had finished Mrs. Abbott sat for a few moments petrified; but she was thirty-eight, not sixty-five, and there was neither dismay nor softening in her narrowed light blue eyes. "But that is abominable! Abominable!" And Alexina, who was prepared for a scolding, shrank a little, for it was the first time that her doting sister had spoken to her with severity. "I don't care," she said stubbornly, and she set her soft lips until they looked stern and hard. "But you must care. You are a Groome." "Oh, yes, and a Ballinger, and a Geary, and all the rest of it. But I'm also going to annex another name of my own choosing. I'll marry whom I damn please, and that is the end of it." "Alexina Groome!" Mrs. Abbott arose in her wrath. "Cannot you see for yourself what association with all these common people has done to you? It's the influence--" "Of two years in New York principally. The girls there are as hard as nails--try to imitate the English. Ours are not a patch, not even Aileen, although she does her best. But I hadn't finished--I even powder my face." Alexina grinned up at her still rudderless sister. "After mother is asleep and I am ready to slip out." "I thought you were safe in New York under the eyes of Ballinger and Geary, or rather of Mattie and Charlotte. They are such earnest good women, so interested in charities--" "Deadly. But you don't know the girls," "And I have told mother again and again that she should not permit you to associate with Aileen Lawton." "She can't help herself. Aileen is one of us. Besides, mother is devoted to the Judge." "But powder! None of us has ever put anything but clean cold water on her face."