Miss Jarrott’s taste in table light was in the direction of candles tempered by deep-red shades.  As no garish electricity was allowed to intrude itself into this soft glow, the result was that only old acquaintances among her guests got a satisfactory notion of each other’s features.  It was with a certain sense of discovery that, by peering through the rose-colored twilight, Miriam discerned now a Jarrott or a Colfax, now an Endsleigh or a Pole—­faces more or less well known to her which she had not had time to recognize during the few hurried minutes in the drawing-room.

It was the dinner of which Evie had said, in explaining her plan of campaign to Miriam, “We must kill off the family first of all.”  It was plain that she regarded the duty as a bore; but she was too worldly wise not to see that her bread cast upon the waters would return to her.  Most of the Jarrotts were important; some were wealthy; and one—­Mrs. Endsleigh Jarrott—­was a power in such matters as assemblies and cotillons.  The ladies Colfax were little less influential; and while the sphere of the Poles and Endsleighs was in the world of art, letters, and scholarship, rather than in that of fashion and finance, they had the uncontested status of good birth.  To Evie they represented just so much in the way of her social assets, and she was quick in appraising them at their correct relative values.  Some would be good for a dinner given in her honor, others for a dance.  The humblest could be counted on for a theatre-party or a “tea.”  She was skilful, too, in presenting her orphan state with a touching vividness that enlisted their sympathies on behalf of “poor Jack’s,” or “poor Gertrude’s,” pretty little girl, according to the side of the house on which they recognized the relationship.

With the confusion incidental to the arrival from South America, the settling into a new house, and the ordering of new clothes, Miriam had had little of the old intimate intercourse with Evie during the six weeks since the latter’s return.  There was no change in their mutual relation; it was only that Evie was caught up into the glory of the coming winter, and had no time for the apartment in Fifty-ninth Street.  It was with double pleasure, therefore, that Miriam responded one day to Evie’s invitation to “come and look at my things,” which meant an inspection of the frocks and hats that had just come home.  They lay about now, in clouds like a soft summer sunset, or in gay spots of feathers and flowers, on the bed and the sofa in Evie’s room, and filled all the chairs except the one on which Miriam had retreated into the farthest corner of the bay-window.  Seated there, not quite in profile, against the light, her head turned and slightly inclined, in order to get a better view of Evie’s finery, her slender figure possessed a sort of Vandyke grace, heightened rather than diminished by the long plumes and rich draperies of the month’s fashion.  Evie flitted between closets, wardrobes, and drawers, prattling while she worked off that first event of her season, in which the family were to be “killed off.”  She recited the names of those who would “simply have to be asked” and of those who could conveniently be omitted.