“Oh, well, then, come.  As people grow older they outgrow their animosities and wish to make friends.”

“You being so old as to have experienced it?” said Keith.

“I am nearly thirty years old,” she said.  “Isn’t it dreadful?”

“Aurora is much older than that,” said Keith.

“Ah, Sir Flatterer, I have a mirror.”  But her eyes filled with a pleasant light as Keith said: 

“Then it will corroborate what needs no proof.”

She knew it was flattery, but she enjoyed it and dimpled.

“Now, you will come?  I want you to come.”  She looked at him with a soft glow in her face.

“Yes.  On your invitation.”

“Alice Lancaster, place one good deed to thy account:  ’Blessed are the peacemakers,’” said Mrs. Lancaster.

When Keith arrived at Mrs. Wickersham’s he found the company assembled in her great drawing-room—­the usual sort to be found in great drawing-rooms of large new chateau-like mansions in a great and commercial city.

“Mr. Keats!” called out the prim servant.  They always took this poetical view of his name.

Mrs. Wickersham greeted him civilly and solemnly.  She had aged much since Keith saw her last, and had also grown quite deaf.  Her face showed traces of the desperate struggle she was making to keep up appearances.  It was apparent that she had not the least idea who he was; but she shook hands with him much as she might have done at a funeral had he called to pay his respects.  Among the late arrivals was Mrs. Wentworth.  She was the richest-dressed woman in the room, and her jewels were the finest, but she had an expression on her face, as she entered, which Keith had never seen there.  Her head was high, and there was an air of defiance about her which challenged the eye at once.

“I don’t think I shall speak to her,” said a voice near Keith.

“Well, I have known her all my life, and until it becomes a public scandal I don’t feel authorized to cut her—­”

The speaker was Mrs. Nailor, who was in her most charitable mood.

“Oh, of course, I shall speak to her here, but I mean—­I certainly shall not visit her.”

“You know she has quarrelled with her friend, Mrs. Lancaster?  About her husband.”  This was behind her fan.

“Oh, yes.  She is to be here to-night.  Quite brazen, isn’t it?  We shall see how they meet.  I met a remarkably pretty girl down in the dressing-room,” she continued; “one of the guests.  She has such pretty manners, too.  Really, I thought, from her politeness to me in arranging my dress, she must be one of the maids until Mrs. Wentworth spoke to her.  Young girls nowadays are so rude!  They take up the mirror the whole time, and never think of letting you see yourself.  I wonder who she can be?”

“Possibly Mrs. Wentworth’s companion.  I think she is here.  She has to have some one to do the proprieties, you know?” said Mrs. Nailor.