“That’s the girl who is supposed to be engaged to Louis Neville,” whispered the pretty countess.

Valerie halted, astounded.

“Didn’t you know it?” asked the other, surprised.

For a moment Valerie remained speechless, then the wild absurdity of it flashed over her and she laughed her relief.

“No, I didn’t know it,” she said.

“Hasn’t anybody ever told you?”

“No,” said Valerie, smiling.

“Well, perhaps it isn’t so, then,” said the countess naively.  “I know very few people of that set, but I’ve heard it talked about—­outside.”

“I don’t believe it is so,” said Valerie demurely.  Her little heart was beating confidently again and she seated herself beside Helene d’Enver in the prim circle of delegates intent upon their chairman, who was calling the meeting to order.

The meeting was interesting and there were few feminine clashes—­merely a smiling and deadly exchange of amenities between a fashionable woman who was an ardent advocate of suffrage, and an equally distinguished lady who was scornfully opposed to it.  But the franchise had nothing at all to do with the discussion concerning the New Idea Home, which is doubtless why it was mentioned; and the meeting of delegates proceeded without further debate.

After it was ended Valerie hurried away to keep an appointment with Neville at Burleson’s studio, and found the big sculptor lying on the sofa, neck swathed in flannel, and an array of medicine bottles at his elbow.

“Can’t go to dinner with you,” he said; “Rita won’t have it.  There’s nothing the matter with me, but she made me lie down here, and I’ve promised to stay here until she returns.”

“John, you don’t look very well,” said Valerie, coming over and seating herself by his side.

“I’m all right, except that I catch cold now and then,” he insisted obstinately.

Valerie looked at the pink patches of colour burning in his cheeks.  There was a transparency to his skin, too, that troubled her.  He was one of those big, blond, blue-eyed fellows whose vivid colour and fine-grained, delicate skin caused physicians to look twice.

He had been reading when Valerie entered; now he laid his ponderous book away, doubled his arms back under his head and looked at Valerie with the placid, bovine friendliness which warmed her heart but always left a slight smile in the corner of her mouth.

“Why do you always smile at me, Valerie?” he asked.

“Because you’re good, John, and I like you.”

“I know you do.  You’re a fine woman, Valerie....  So is Rita.”

“Rita is a darling.”

[Illustration:  “‘John, you don’t look very well,’ said Valerie.”]

“She’s all right,” he nodded.  A moment later he added:  “She comes from Massachusetts.”

Valerie laughed:  “The sacred codfish smiled on your cradle, too, didn’t it, John?”