“‘Nee, hee-hee—­hee; hee!’”

Uncle John tried to neigh, and made a sorry mess of it, although Bobby shrieked with delight.

Then came a sudden hush.  Diana caught the maid’s voice, perhaps announcing the presence of a visitor, for Patsy cried in subdued accents: 

“Goodness me, Mary! why didn’t you say so?  Listen, Uncle John—­”

“Leggo that ear, Bobby—­leggo!”

“—­You watch the baby, Uncle John, and don’t let anything happen to him.  I’ve got a caller.”

Diana smiled, a bit scornfully, and then composed her features as a young girl bustled into the room and came toward her with frank cordiality indicated in the wide smile and out-stretched hand.

“Pardon my keeping you waiting,” said Patsy, dropping into a chair opposite her visitor, “Uncle John and I were romping with the baby from upstarts—­Bobby’s such a dear!  I didn’t quite catch the name Mary gave me and forgot to look at your card.”

“I am Miss Von Taer.”

“Not Diana Von Taer, the swell society girl?” cried Patsy eagerly.

Diana couldn’t remember when she had been so completely nonplused before.  After an involuntary gasp she answered quietly: 

“I am Diana Von Taer.”

“Well, I’m glad to meet you, just the same,” said Patsy, cheerfully.  “We outsiders are liable to look on society folk as we would on a cage of monkeys—­because we’re so very ignorant, you know, and the bars are really between us.”  This frank disdain verged on rudeness, although the girl had no intention of being rude.  Diana was annoyed in spite of her desire to be tolerant.

“Perhaps the bars are imaginary,” she rejoined, carelessly, “and it may be you’ve been looking at the side-show and not at the entertainment in the main tent.  Will you admit that possibility, Miss Doyle?”

Patsy laughed gleefully.

“I think you have me there, Miss Von Taer.  And what do I know about society?  Just nothing at all.  It’s out of my line entirely.”

“Perhaps it is,” was the slow response.  “Society appeals to only those whose tastes seem to require it.”

“And aren’t we drawing distinctions?” enquired Miss Doyle.  “Society at large is the main evidence of civilization, and all decent folk are members of it.”

“Isn’t that communism?” asked Diana.

“Perhaps so.  It’s society at large.  But certain classes have leagued together and excluded themselves from their fellows, admitting only those of their own ilk.  The people didn’t put them on their pedestals—­they put themselves there.  Yet the people bow down and worship these social gods and seem glad to have them.  The newspapers print their pictures and the color of their gowns and how they do their hair and what they eat and what they do, and the poor washwomen and shop-girls and their like read these accounts more religiously than they do their bibles.  My maid Mary’s a good girl, but she grabs the society sheet of the Sunday paper and reads it from top to bottom.  I never look at it myself.”