Mr. Lanley enjoyed a small triumph when she entered.  He had been so discreet in his description of her to Mrs. Baxter, he had been so careful not to hint that she was an illuminating personality who had suddenly come into his life, that he knew he had left his old friend with the general impression that Mrs. Wayne was merely the mother of an undesirable suitor of Mathilde’s who spent most of her life in the company of drunkards.  So when she came in, a little late as usual, in her long, soft, gray dress, with a pink rose at her girdle, looking far more feminine than Mrs. Baxter, about whom Adelaide’s offensive adjective “upholstered” still clung, he felt the full effect of her appearance.  He even enjoyed the obviously suspicious glance which Mrs. Baxter immediately afterward turned upon him.

At dinner things began well.  They talked about people and events of which Mrs. Wayne knew nothing, but her interest and good temper made her not an outsider, but an audience.  Anecdotes which even Mr. Lanley might have felt were trivial gossip became, through her attention to them, incidents of the highest human interest.  Such an uncritical interest was perhaps too stimulating.

He expected nothing dangerous when, during the game course, Mrs. Baxter turned to him and asked how Mathilde had enjoyed what she referred to as “her first winter.”

Mr. Lanley liked to talk about Mathilde.  He described, with a little natural exaggeration, how much she had enjoyed herself and how popular she had been.

“I hope she hasn’t been bitten by any of those modern notions,” said Mrs. Baxter.

Mr. Wilsey broke in.

“Oh, these modern, restless young women!” he said.  “They don’t seem able to find their natural contentment in their own homes.  My daughter came to me the other day with a wonderful scheme of working all day long with charity organizations.  I said to her, ‘My dear, charity begins at home.’  My wife, Mrs. Baxter, is an old-fashioned housekeeper.  She gives out all supplies used in my house; she knows where the servants are at every minute of the day, and we have nine.  She—­”

“Oh, how is dear Mrs. Wilsey?” said Mrs. Baxter, perhaps not eager for the full list of her activities.

“Well, at present she is in a sanatorium,” replied her husband, “from overwork, just plain overwork.”

Mr. Lanley, catching Mrs. Wayne’s twinkling eye, could only pray that she would not point out that a sojourn in a sanatorium was not complete contentment in the home; but before she had a chance, Mrs. Baxter had gone on.

“That’s so like the modern girl—­anything but her obvious duty.  She’ll help any one but her mother and work anywhere but in the home.  We’ve had a very painful case at home lately.  One of our most charming young girls has suddenly developed an absolutely morbid curiosity about the things that take place in the women’s courts.  Why, as her poor father said to me, ’Mrs. Baxter, old as I am, I hear things in those courts so shocking I have hard work forgetting them; and yet Imogen wants me to let her go into those courts day after day—­’”