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amused. “But don’t you think you’re better looking than your

cousin,” she went on sharply and even commandingly.

“Some people think you are.”

Although a little staggered and yet flattered by this question

which propounded what he might have liked to believe, and

although intrigued by this girl’s interest in him, still Clyde

would not have dreamed of venturing any such assertion

even though he had believed it. Too vividly it brought the

aggressive and determined and even at times revengeful-

looking features of Gilbert before him, who, stirred by such

a report as this, would not hesitate to pay him out.

“Why, I don’t think anything of the kind,” he laughed.

“Honest, I don’t. Of course I don’t.”

“Oh, well, then maybe you don’t, but you are just the same.

But that won’t help you much either, unless you have money

—that is, if you want to run with people who have.” She

looked up at him and added quite blandly. “People like

money even more than they do looks.”

What a sharp girl this was, he thought, and what a hard,

cold statement. It cut him not a little, even though she had

not intended that it should.

But just then Sondra herself entered with some youth whom

Clyde did not know—a tall, gangling, but very smartly-

dressed individual. And after them, along with others,

Bertine and Stuart Finchley.

“Here she is now,” added Gertrude a little spitefully, for she

resented the fact that Sondra was so much better-looking

than either she or her sister, and that she had expressed an

interest in Clyde. “She’ll be looking to see if you notice how

pretty she looks, so don’t disappoint her.”

The impact of this remark, a reflection of the exact truth,

was not necessary to cause Clyde to gaze attentively, and

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even eagerly. For apart from her local position and means

and taste in dress and manners, Sondra was of the exact

order and spirit that most intrigued him—a somewhat

refined (and because of means and position showered

upon her) less savage, although scarcely less self-centered,

Hortense Briggs. She was, in her small, intense way, a

seeking Aphrodite, eager to prove to any who were

sufficiently attractive the destroying power of her charm,

while at the same time retaining her own personality and

individuality free of any entangling alliance or compromise.

However, for varying reasons which she could not quite

explain to herself, Clyde appealed to her. He might not be

anything socially or financially, but he was interesting to her.

Hence she was now keen, first to see if he were present,

next to be sure that he gained no hint that she had seen

him first, and lastly to act as grandly as possible for his

benefit—a Hortensian procedure and type of thought that

was exactly the thing best calculated to impress him. He

gazed and there she was—tripping here and there in a filmy

chiffon dance frock, shaded from palest yellow to deepest

orange, which most enhanced her dark eyes and hair. And

having exchanged a dozen or more “Oh, Hellos,” and

references with one and another to this, that and the other

local event, she at last condescended to evince awareness

of his proximity.

“Oh, here you are. You decided to come after all. I wasn’t

sure whether you would think it worth while. You’ve been

introduced to everybody, of course?” She looked around as

much as to say, that if he had not been she would proceed

to serve him in this way. The others, not so very much

impressed by Clyde, were still not a little interested by the

fact that she seemed so interested in him.

“Yes, I met nearly everybody, I think.”

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“Except Freddie Sells. He came in with me just now. Here

you are, Freddie,” she called to a tall and slender youth,

smooth of cheek and obviously becurled as to hair, who

now came over and in his closely-fitting dress coat looked

down on Clyde about as a spring rooster might look down

on a sparrow.

“This is Clyde Griffiths, I was telling you about, Fred,” she

began briskly. “Doesn’t he look a lot like Gilbert?”

“Why, you do at that,” exclaimed this amiable person, who

seemed to be slightly troubled with weak eyes since he

bent close. “I hear you’re a cousin of Gil’s. I know him well.

We went through Princeton together. I used to be over here

before I joined the General Electric over at Schenectady.

But I’m around a good bit yet. You’re connected with the

factory, I suppose.”

“Yes, I am,” said Clyde, who, before a youth of obviously so

much more training and schooling than he possessed, felt

not a little reduced. He began to fear that this individual

would try to talk to him about things which he could not

understand, things concerning which, having had no

consecutive training of any kind, he had never been

technically informed.

“In charge of some department, I suppose?”

“Yes, I am,” said Clyde, cautiously and nervously.

“You know,” went on Mr. Sells, briskly and interestingly,

being of a commercial as well as technical turn, “I’ve always

wondered just what, outside of money, there is to the collar

business. Gil and I used to argue about that when we were

down at college. He used to try to tell me that there was

some social importance to making and distributing collars,

giving polish and manner to people who wouldn’t otherwise

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have them, if it weren’t for cheap collars. I think he musta

read that in a book somewhere. I always laughed at him.”

Clyde was about to attempt an answer, although already

beyond his depth in regard to this. “Social importance.” Just

what did he mean by that—some deep, scientific

information that he had acquired at college. He was saved

a non-committal or totally uninformed answer by Sondra

who, without thought or knowledge of the difficulty which

was then and there before him, exclaimed: “Oh, no

arguments, Freddie. That’s not interesting. Besides I want

him to meet my brother and Bertine. You remember Miss

Cranston. She was with me at your uncle’s last spring.”

Clyde turned, while Fred made the best of the rebuff by

merely looking at Sondra, whom he admired so very much.

“Yes, of course,” Clyde began, for he had been studying

these two along with others. To him, apart from Sondra,

Bertine seemed exceedingly attractive, though quite beyond

his understanding also. Being involved, insincere and sly,

she merely evoked in him a troubled sense of

ineffectiveness, and hence uncertainty, in so far as her

particular world was concerned—no more.

“Oh, how do you do? It’s nice to see you again,” she

drawled, the while her greenish-gray eyes went over him in

a smiling and yet indifferent and quizzical way. She thought

him attractive, but not nearly as shrewd and hard as she

would have preferred him to be. “You’ve been terribly busy

with your work, I suppose. But now that you’ve come out

once, I suppose we’ll see more of you here and there.”

“Well, I hope so,” he replied, showing his even teeth.

Her eyes seemed to be saying that she did not believe what

she was saying and that he did not either, but that it was

necessary, possibly amusing, to say something of the sort.

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And a related, though somewhat modified, version of this

same type of treatment was accorded him by Stuart,

Sondra’s brother.

“Oh, how do you do. Glad to know you. My sister has just

been telling me about you. Going to stay in Lycurgus long?

Hope you do. We’ll run into one another once in a while

then, I suppose.”

Clyde was by no means so sure, but he admired the easy,

shallow way in which Stuart laughed and showed his even

white teeth—a quick, genial, indifferent laugh. Also the way

in which he turned and laid hold of Wynette Phant’s white

arm as she passed. “Wait a minute, Wyn. I want to ask you

something.” He was gone—into another room—bending

close to her and talking fast. And Clyde had noticed that his

clothes were perfectly cut.

What a gay world, he thought. What a brisk world. And just

then Jill Trumbull began calling, “Come on, people. It’s not

my fault. The cook’s mad about something and you’re all

late anyhow. We’ll get it over with and then dance, eh?”

“You can sit between me and Miss Trumbull when she gets

the rest of us seated,” assured Sondra. “Won’t that be nice?

And now you may take me in.”

She slipped a white arm under Clyde’s and he felt as

though he were slowly but surely being transported to

paradise.

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Chapter 26

THE dinner itself was chatter about a jumble of places,

personalities, plans, most of which had nothing to do with

anything that Clyde had personally contacted here.