Olivetta had risen, somewhat indignantly.

“I never eat candy!”

“A box of hairpins,” continued Jack, clumsily picking up one from the floor, “that there aren’t more than seventy-five.”

“Oh, if you want me out of the way, all right!” said Olivetta, sticking the pin into place.

“Here, is that your purse?” asked Jack, fishing an open purse from beneath the chair Olivetta had just vacated.

“Yes, I’m always dropping it.  I lost two—­”

“I must say, Olivetta,” put in Mrs. De Peyster reprovingly, “that you really must not be so careless!”

Jack was looking at a card that had fallen from the purse.

“Hello!  And a ticket to the exhibition of paintings of—­”

“Give it to me!” And Olivetta, with suddenly crimson face, snatched purse and card from Jack’s hands.  “I’ll wait up in your bedroom, Caroline, and look at your new gowns.”  And with a rapidity that approached instantaneity she disappeared.

“Jack,” his mother demanded suspiciously, “what was that card?”

“Just an old admission ticket to varnishing day at the spring exhibit of the American Society of Painters,” said Jack easily.  And without giving Mrs. De Peyster an instant in which to pursue the matter further, he awkwardly pushed her favorite chair toward the fire to a place beside his own.  “Come sit down, mother.  There’s a lot of things I want to tell you.”

Mrs. De Peyster lowered herself into the chair.  “Yes?”

Jack’s eyes had meditatively followed Olivetta.  “Do you know, mother, that Olivetta would really be an awfully good sort if she only had the right chance?”

“The right chance?”

“Yes.  Think of her living on and on in that deadly proper little hotel—­chuck full of primped and crimped and proud poor relations who don’t dare draw a single full-sized breath without first considering whether such a daring act might not disturb the social standing of somebody over on Fifth Avenue or down here on Washington Square—­Oh, I say, mother, five more years of that life and Olivetta will be choked—­dessicated—­salted away—­a regular forever-and-ever-amen old maid.  But if—­” He hesitated.

“Yes—­if?”

“If Olivetta were only to marry some one—­some decent fellow—­she’d blossom out, grow as young as she actually is—­and, who knows, perhaps even her hairpins might stay in.”

“Marry, yes.  But whom?”

“I’ve seen a few things—­there’s a certain party—­and—­” He stumbled a bit, conscious that he was becoming indiscreet.  “And, oh, well, just on general principles marriage is a good thing.”

“That is just the opinion I have been urging upon you in regard to yourself,” returned his mother in her even, confident tone.

“U’m—­yes,” Jack said hastily.  “But that was not—­not the first thing I wanted to speak about.”

“I believe you did say there were several matters.”