"By no means," smiled Richard Darcy, mollified. "On the contrary, she took an interest in many people whom I found tiresome in the extreme. Her lame ducks, I called them. Mr. Nikolai was one of those." "Why lame?" "Well, at the time we first knew him it seems the girl he was engaged to had just thrown him over because she found out that he was a Jew." Effie May gave a little squeal of horror, "A Jew! Well, I don't blame her for shying at the altar! Of all the men I've known in my day, I never _did_ go with any Jew!" "I confess I have something of the same prejudice myself," admitted the Major, "Jews and the canile.... But Mary was different, somehow. Not democratic exactly--she was one of the most fastidious women I have ever known. But people were simply people to her, particularly if they were in trouble. She and Nikolai became great friends. And of course since then he had grown to be quite a distinguished person, Jew or no Jew." "I shouldn't have thought you'd have wanted him round the house, though!" mused Effie May, as though Mr. Nikolai's Judaism might have been contagious. "Oh, well, he was so devoted to the child, and so grateful, and in fact made himself useful in so many ways," explained Richard Darcy with a slight blush, "that I had not the heart to object to his presence. Besides, as he is not robust, and has no progeny of his own, I thought that in time perhaps Joan--You see?" "I see! Of course Jew money is as good as any money, especially when the Jew's dead." She nodded thoughtfully. "But it puts him out of the question as a husband for Joan." "My darling, he has never been _in_ the question as a husband for Joan! What an idea! Was it so happy in its own little nest that it wants to find nesties for all the other little birdies!" cooed the bridegroom, impatiently drawing her down into his arms again. "Um-m-m!" responded the bride, yielding without undue reluctance. And so Joan found them as she came remorsefully downstairs some time later, two mature love-birds perched upon a single twig, as it were, oblivious of time and the grins of passing servants; and she turned away hastily to shut out the horrid sight. CHAPTER XXII One thing almost reconciled her to the distasteful idea of entering further into the social world under the wing of her step-mother, and that was the gratification, the artless delight, taken by her father's cousins in the idea of assisting at a Galt House Ball, almost in the capacity of hostesses. There was something piteous to the girl, though humiliating, about the three little spinsters' unflagging interest in the amusements of people who had forgotten, if they ever knew of, the Misses Darcys' existence. Despite their long retirement from what they called "the polite world," these ladies were inveterate students of the social column, and constituted in themselves a complete local edition of "Who's Who."