Mrs. Kirkham had once been a friend of Minnie Alston's and she was the only one of that now diminishing group with whom Lorry felt at ease. Had the others known of the visit and its cause they would have thrown up their hands and said, "Just like that girl." Mrs. Kirkham was nobody now, the last person to go to for help in social matters. In the old days in Nevada her husband had been George Alston's paymaster, and she had held her head high and worn diamonds. But that was ages ago. Long before the date of this story the high head had been lowered and the diamonds sold, all but those that encircled the miniature of her only baby, dead before the Con-Virginia slump. She lived in a little flat up toward the cemeteries, second floor, door to the left, and please press the push button. In her small parlor the pictures of the Bonanza Kings hung on the walls and she was wont, an old rheumatic figure in shiny black with the miniature pinned at her withered throat, to point to these and tell stories of the great Iliad of the Comstock. She was very fond of Lorry and when she heard her predicament--a party to be given and not enough men--patted her hand and nodded understandingly. Times were changed--ah, if the girls had been in Virginia in the seventies! And after a brisk canter through her memories (she always had to have that) galloped back into the present and its needs. Lorry went home reassured and soothed. You could always count on Mrs. Kirkham's taking hold and helping you through. The old lady was put on her mettle, flattered by the appeal, made to feel she was still a living force. Also she would have done anything in the world for Minnie's girls. She consulted with her niece, well married and socially aspiring if not yet installed in the citadel. It was a happy thought; the niece had the very thing, "a delightful gentleman," lately arrived in the city. So it fell out that Boye Mayer, under the chaperonage of Mrs. Kirkham, was brought to call and asked to fill a seat at the formidable dinner. Formidable was hardly a strong enough word. It advanced on Lorry like a darkling doom. Once she had set its machinery in motion it seemed to rush forward with a vengeful momentum. Everybody accepted but Charlie Crowder, who could not get off, and Mark Burrage, who wrote her a short, stiff note saying he "was unable to attend." For a space that made her oblivious to the larger, surrounding distress. It was a little private and particular sting for herself that concentrated her thoughts upon the hurt it left. After she read it her face had flushed, and she had dropped it into her desk snapping the lid down hard. If he didn't want to come he could stay away. Men didn't like her anyway; she knew it and she wasn't going to make any mistakes. Her concern in life was Chrystie and it was being pointed out to her that she wasn't supposed to have any other.