"Look at this jacket while it's a novelty," she went on without waiting for any response. "The girls were all tremendously taken by it; I noticed a dozen of them trying to see how it was made.--Oh, how do?" she said airily to Abner, who came up just then. Having perceived Medora in her remote corner, he had finally summoned enough resolution to make his first movement of the evening: leaving Edith Whyland in the company of Dr. Gowdy, he had succeeded in crossing the intervening leagues alone and unaided. Abner frowned to find this pert little piece cutting in ahead of him in such a fashion. "How do you do?" he responded stiffly. "They'll all be making ones like it," Clytie rattled on. "By next Sunday every street from Poplar Alley to Flat-iron Park will swarm with them, and not a milliner's window along the length of Green-gage Road but will have three or four of these toques on display. Yes, sir; I'm a power in the Ward already, let me tell you." Bond placed his small hand on Abner's broad shoulder. "Isn't she a winner?" he murmured ecstatically. "If Medora, now, could only have done something as spirited and unconventional----" "I have no fault to find with Miss Giles," retorted Abner in a stern undertone. "To me she is perfectly satisfactory. She will always do the right thing in the right way, and always be a lady." Bond withdrew his hand. "Oh, come, I say," he began protestingly. Abner ignored this. "How about the basket-weaving?" he asked Clytie. "Well," Clytie responded hardily, "I found plenty teaching that already. I have chosen for my department instruction in tact, taste, dress and manners. Such instruction is badly needed, in more quarters than one." Medora flushed. "Clytie Summers," she said, the first moment that the two were alone, "if ever you speak to Mr. Joyce like that again you need never come to our studio nor count me any longer among your acquaintances." "Why, dear me----" began Clytie, with an affectation of puzzled innocence. "I mean it," said Medora, with an angry tear starting in her eye. "Mr. Joyce is too much of a man to be treated so by a child like you." XX Abner lingered on. He had meant to leave early, but it was as easy to stay as to go; besides, he felt the stirring of a curiosity to see what the closing hour of such an occasion might be like. Everything, thus far, had been most seemly, most decorous, full of a pleasant informality and a friendly, trustful goodwill; but the crucial point, he had read, always came about supper-time, after which the rout turned into an orgy. Dr. Gowdy came across and launched himself upon Abner, just as he had done before, when Mrs. Whyland had first made them acquainted. He frankly admired the strength and the stature of the only man in the room who was taller and more robust than himself, as well as the intent sobriety of his glance and the laconic gravity of his speech.