"And yet you won’t marry a poor man," said Adelaide Maud. "How unjust the world is." They parted in better form than they had done an hour earlier. "Wasn’t she queer," said Jean, "to go off like that?" "Queerer that she came back," said Mabel. "Do you know what I think? I believe Adelaide Maud bought that hat simply--simply----" "To kill time," said Jean. "No. To stay with us a little longer," said Mabel. "It’s more than any of the Dudgeons ever thought of doing before--if it’s true!" said blunt, robust Jean. "But I don’t believe it is," said she. "Let’s scoot for that bus or we’ll lose it." So they scooted for the bus. CHAPTER XXI At Lady Emily’s Adelaide Maud found herself possessed of quite a fervid longing. She wanted to see Mabel and Jean disport themselves with dignity at Lady Emily’s. What had always remained difficult in Ridgetown seemed to become curiously possible at Lady Emily’s, where indeed the highest in the land might be met. That she might make real friends of the two girls at last seemed to become a possibility. It was not merely the fact of Lady Emily’s being a "complete dear" that constituted the difference. It was more the absence of the Ridgetown standards. There were never upstarts to be found at Lady Emily’s. Her own character sifted her circle in an automatic manner. That which was vulgar or self-seeking had no response from her. Racy people found her dull, would-be smart persons quite inanimate. She could no more help being unresponsive to them than she could help being interested in others whom she respected. It was a distinguished circle which surrounded her, and those who never pierced it, never understood how easily it was formed, how inviolately kept. Occasionally Lady Emily’s "tact" was upheld as the secret of her power. "And I have absolutely no tact at all," she would moan. "I simply follow my impulses as a child would." It was the unerring correctness of her impulses which made Adelaide Maud believe that she would welcome the Leightons.