Pauline smiled faintly. "I don't think you understand. The law is a _profession_." (Dexter had told her that.) "It requires years of training, of preparation. Michelangelo would have to take a degree at Harvard or Columbia first. But perhaps"--a glance at her wrist-watch told her that her next engagement impended--"perhaps Dexter could suggest some other kind of employment. I don't know, of course... I can't promise... But meanwhile ..." She turned to her writing-table, and a cheque passed between them, too small to make a perceptible impression on Michelangelo's deficit, but large enough for Amalasuntha to murmur: "How you do spoil me, darling! Well--for the boy's sake I accept in all simplicity. And about the reception for the Cardinal--I'm sure a cable to Venturino will arrange it. Would that kind Maisie send it off, and sign my name?" It was well after three o'clock when Pauline came down the Lindons' door-step and said to her chauffeur: "To Mr. Wyant's." And she had still to crowd in her eurythmic exercises (put off from the morning), and be ready at half-past four, bathed, waved and apparelled, for the Mothers' Day Meeting, which was to take place in her own ball-room, with a giant tea to follow. Certainly, no amount of "mental deep-breathing," and all the other exercises in serenity, could combat the nervous apprehension produced by this breathless New York life. Today she really felt it to be too much for her: she leaned back and closed her lids with a sigh. But she was jerked back to consciousness by the traffic-control signal, which had immobilized the motor just when every moment was so precious. The result of every one's being in such a hurry to get everywhere was that nobody could get anywhere. She looked across the triple row of motors in line with hers, and saw in each (as if in a vista of mirrors) an expensively dressed woman like herself, leaning forward in the same attitude of repressed impatience, the same nervous frown of hurry on her brow. Oh, if only she could remember to relax! But how could one, with everything going wrong as it was today? The visit to Fanny Lindon had been an utter failure. Pauline had apparently overestimated her influence on the Lindons, and that discovery in itself was rather mortifying. To be told that the Mahatma business was "a family affair"--and thus be given to understand that she was no longer of the family! Pauline, in her own mind, had never completely ceased to be a Wyant. She thought herself still entitled to such shadowy prerogatives as the name afforded, and was surprised that the Wyants should not think so too. After all, she kept Amalasuntha for them--no slight charge! But Mrs. Lindon had merely said it was "all too painful"--and had ended, surprisingly: "Dexter himself has specially asked us not to say anything."