She descended from the car in a flutter of pretense that she habitually descended from cars, and a moment later was overjoyed to note that her escort sustained the greetings of the assembled Whipples and their guests with a practiced coolness, or what looked like it.  He shook hands warmly with his brother and Patricia Whipple; was calm under the ordeal of introductions to the little friends Winona had warned him of—­two girls of peerless beauty and a fair-haired, sleepy-looking boy with long eyelashes and dimples.

[Illustration:  “THE GIRL WAS ALREADY READING WILBUR’S PALM, DISCLOSING TO HIM THAT HE HAD A DEEP VEIN OF CRUELTY IN HIS NATURE.  PATRICIA WHIPPLE LISTENED IMPATIENTLY TO THIS AND OTHER SINISTER REVELATIONS.”]

These young people were dressed rather less formally than Winona had expected, being mostly in flannels and ducks and tennis shoes not too lately cleaned.  She was instantly glad she had been particular as to Wilbur’s outfit.  He looked ever so much more distinguished than either Merle or his friend.  She watched him as he stood unconcerned under the chatter of the three girls.  They had begun at once to employ upon him the oldest arts known to woman, and he was not flustered or “gauche”—­a word Winona had lately learned.  Beyond her divining was the truth that he would much rather have been talking to Starling Tucker.  She thought he was merely trying to look bored, and was doing it very well.

The little friends of Patricia, and Patricia herself, could have told her better.  They knew he was genuinely bored, and redoubled their efforts to enslave him.  Merle chatted brightly with Winona, with such a man-of-the-world air that she herself became flustered at the memory that she had once been as a mother to him and drenched his handkerchief with perfume on a Sabbath morning.  The little male friend of Merle stood by in silent relief.  Patricia and her little guests had for three days been doing to him what they now tried doing to the new boy; he was glad the new boy had come.  He had grown sulky under the incessant onslaughts.

The girl with black hair and the turquoise necklace was already reading Wilbur’s palm, disclosing to him that he had a deep vein of cruelty in his nature.  Patricia Whipple listened impatiently to this and other sinister revelations.  She had not learned palm reading, but now resolved to.  Meantime, she could and did stem the flood of character portrayal by a suggestion of tennis.  Patricia was still freckled, though not so obtrusively as in the days of her lawlessness.  Her skirt and her hair were longer, the latter being what Wilbur Cowan later called rusty.  She was still active and still determined, however.  No girl in her presence was going to read interminably the palm of one upon whom she had, in a way of speaking, a family claim, especially one of such distinguished appearance and manners—­apparently being bored to death by the attention of mere girls.