Undine’s face lit up as if a shaft of sunset had struck it through the triple-curtained windows of the Stentorian.

“She says she wants me to dine with her next Wednesday.  Isn’t it queer?  Why does she want me?  She’s never seen me!” Her tone implied that she had long been accustomed to being “wanted” by those who had.

Mrs. Heeny laughed.  “He saw you, didn’t he?”

“Who?  Ralph Marvell?  Why, of course he did—­Mr. Popple brought him to the party here last night.”

“Well, there you are...  When a young man in society wants to meet a girl again, he gets his sister to ask her.”

Undine stared at her incredulously.  “How queer!  But they haven’t all got sisters, have they?  It must be fearfully poky for the ones that haven’t.”

“They get their mothers—­or their married friends,” said Mrs. Heeny omnisciently.

“Married gentlemen?” enquired Mrs. Spragg, slightly shocked, but genuinely desirous of mastering her lesson.

“Mercy, no!  Married ladies.”

“But are there never any gentlemen present?” pursued Mrs. Spragg, feeling that if this were the case Undine would certainly be disappointed.

“Present where?  At their dinners?  Of course—­Mrs. Fairford gives the smartest little dinners in town.  There was an account of one she gave last week in this morning’s town talk:  I guess it’s right here among my clippings.”  Mrs. Heeny, swooping down on her bag, drew from it a handful of newspaper cuttings, which she spread on her ample lap and proceeded to sort with a moistened forefinger.  “Here,” she said, holding one of the slips at arm’s length; and throwing back her head she read, in a slow unpunctuated chant:  ’"Mrs. Henley Fairford gave another of her natty little dinners last Wednesday as usual it was smart small and exclusive and there was much gnashing of teeth among the left-outs as Madame Olga Loukowska gave some of her new steppe dances after dinner’—­that’s the French for new dance steps,” Mrs. Heeny concluded, thrusting the documents back into her bag.

“Do you know Mrs. Fairford too?” Undine asked eagerly; while Mrs. Spragg, impressed, but anxious for facts, pursued:  “Does she reside on Fifth Avenue?”

“No, she has a little house in Thirty-eighth Street, down beyond Park Avenue.”

The ladies’ faces drooped again, and the masseuse went on promptly:  “But they’re glad enough to have her in the big houses!—­Why, yes, I know her,” she said, addressing herself to Undine.  “I mass’d her for a sprained ankle a couple of years ago.  She’s got a lovely manner, but no conversation.  Some of my patients converse exquisitely,” Mrs. Heeny added with discrimination.

Undine was brooding over the note.  “It is written to mother—­Mrs. Abner E. Spragg—­I never saw anything so funny!  ’Will you allow your daughter to dine with me?’ Allow!  Is Mrs. Fairford peculiar?”