Mrs. Bates presently relaxed. "That woman who just passed," she explained; "she was wondering if these diamonds weren't imitations, and the real ones in the safety vaults down-town. Notice that other one over there; yes, the one in nile-green, with the garnet velvet sleeves. She's looking for me, and can't find me. There! she sees Granger--everybody knows _him_. And now she's quieter; she's satisfied; she has taken old Mrs. McIntosh for me, just because Granger happens to be in their box for a moment. See, the man alongside of her is smiling and looking the same way. I know what she's saying to him: 'Is _that_ Mrs. Bates--that plain old woman in that dowdy gown? Well, I never!--after all I've heard and read.' And she's so happy over it. Tell me, child; _am_ I plain, _am_ I dowdy?" "You are magnificent," said Jane, squeezing her hand. "Carolus-Duran is only a dauber--and a half-blind one at that!" Jane, after the first half-hour, had become quite habituated to her new and unaccustomed environment. Her attitude was neither too self-conscious nor too relaxed; and she never lost sight of the fact that she was thirty-three. Her dress was a fabric in a soft shade of blue-gray run through by fine black lines. Her ample sleeves took full advantage of the prevailing mode, and several falls of wide lace passed between them, both before and behind. Her hair was done up high, in a fashion devised by her fairy godmother--a piece of discreet but fetching phantasy. Jane leaned back graciously in her chair, after the manner of her favorite heroines, losing in height and gaining in breadth; never before had she felt so amplitudinous, so imperial. "Whoever would suspect," she asked, turning over her shoulder to Susan Bates, "that I was a natural-born rail?" "Nobody," the other responded. "You never looked so well in your life." Jane blushed with pleasure. At that moment two of the Fortnightly ladies passed--clever creatures, who could drive culture and society abreast. Jane, with the flush still on her face and a happy glitter in those wide eyes, leaned forward and bowed in the most marked style at her command. "I am here myself," she seemed to announce. "Well," said one of the Fortnightly ladies, "where is the 'Decadence' now?" "Ah!" smiled the other, "that's past, and the 'Renaissance' is here again!" However, Jane was not so taken up with her literary affinities as to lose sight of her own kith and kin. She saw Rosy swim past once or twice, and was gratified by constant glimpses of an active and radiant Truesdale. Once Statira Belden drove by in saffron satin and a mother-of-pearl tiara. "And that's her daughter with her," commented Jane. "And there's that girl from New York. And there goes her son--that smooth-faced little snip. Huh!--compare him with our Truesdale!"