Presently Mrs. Mourraille entered. She was an older edition of Stephanie, except that her hair was black and her eyes grey--the honest grey that one instinctively trusts and is rarely deceived in. Now they bore the trace of suffering, and her hair was beginning to whiten--had begun during the last year, her intimates observed. Stephanie arose quickly from the dressing-table, where she had been straightening out her own auburn tresses before the glass, and gliding swiftly over bent and kissed her mother on the cheek. "Sit here, dearest," she said. "I noticed Mrs. Parsons was with you when I came in, so I didn't stop." "I saw you," Mrs. Mourraille smiled--"and so did Mrs. Parsons!" "What did she say?" "Not a word vocally; but she said many things by her face--chiefly bewilderment and concern." "Some other faces have shown similarly this afternoon," said Stephanie. "Did you meet many that you knew on your drive?" "Yes--I went out to the Country Club--the place was crowded." "My dear! was it wise?" exclaimed Mrs. Mourraille. "Was it wise, so soon?" "Judging from the general result, I should say not!" laughed Stephanie. "But it will give them something to talk about the rest of the afternoon, and furnish a topic for dinner. And for that they should be grateful to me." "My dear!" marvelled her mother. "Oh, you should have seen the preoccupied air of every woman on the piazza--and there were scores of them there. It was positively chilling." "Didn't any of them even speak to you?" "Not one!" "Who were there?" asked Mrs. Mourraille, her lips tightening. "Every one in town, I think. It was the regular Saturday afternoon crowd--and then some." "Did you give them a chance to speak, dear--or did you go haughtily through them, looking neither to right nor to the left?" "Come to think of it, I went right through them--to a table in the remote corner. However, it made no difference. I might have forced some of them to bow but it would have been a holdup and they would have been justified in taking it out on me afterward. This was the better way. No one can feel hurt--and every one can choose at leisure what she will do." "Wouldn't it have been wiser to let them choose at leisure, in the first place, rather than to force them to choose quickly, with the chance that they will reverse themselves at leisure?" suggested Mrs. Mourraille kindly. "You mean that I shouldn't have gone to the Club?--possibly. But I wanted to see--and, as I remarked to Montague Pendleton, _I saw_." "Was Montague with you?" exclaimed Mrs. Mourraille. "He didn't accompany me--he met me at the Club-house--he and Sheldon Burgoyne." And she explained. Mrs. Mourraille expressed her appreciation of their actions in praiseful terms--then she asked: "Were any of my particular friends there?" "It doesn't matter, mother dear. I won't get you into any snarl any further than I've already drawn you."