“Well, what are you going to do about it?” he asked, breaking off in the midst of the cruel ecstasy of the daughter of Herodias, and swinging himself back, so as to confront her.

“I’m going to give a little tea,” Mrs. Wappinger answered, with decision; “a tay antime, as the French say.  I shall have these two Eveleths—­or whatever their name is—­Lucilla van Tromp, and Derek and Dorothea Pruyn.”

“You may accomplish the first and the last.  You’ll find it difficult to fill in the middle.  To say nothing of the old girl, Derek Pruyn is too busy for teas—­intime, or otherwise.”

“I’m going to have him,” she stated, with energy.

“You go round and tell Dorothea she’s got to bring him—­she’s just got to, that’s all.  He’ll come—­I know he will.  There are forces at work here that you and I don’t see, and if something doesn’t happen, my name isn’t Clara Wappinger.”

With this mysterious saying she rose, to leave Carli to his music.

“How very occult!” he laughed.

“Nobody knows James van Tromp better than I do,” she declared, with pride, turning on the threshold, “and he doesn’t write that way unless he has a plan in mind.  You tell Dorothea what I say.  Let me see!  To-day is Tuesday; the Picardie will get in on Saturday; you’ll see Dorothea on Sunday; and we’ll have the tea on Thursday next.”

With her habitual air of triumphant decision Mrs. Wappinger departed, and the incident closed.

V

It must be admitted that Diane Eveleth found her entry into the Land of Promise rather disappointing.  To outward things she paid comparatively little heed.  The general aspect of New York was what she had seen in pictures and expected.  That habits and customs should be strange to her she took as a matter of course; and she was too eager for a welcome to be critical.  As a Frenchwoman, she was neither curious nor analytical regarding that which lay outside her immediate sphere of interest, and she instituted no comparisons between Broadway and the boulevards, or any of the tall buildings and Notre Dame.  It may be confessed that her thoughts went scarcely beyond the human element, with its possible bearing on her fortunes.

In this respect she made the discovery that Mrs. Eveleth was not to be taken as an authority.  She had given Diane to understand that the return of Naomi de Ruyter to New York would be a matter of civic interest, “especially among the old families,” and that they would scarcely have landed before finding themselves amid people whom she knew.  But forty years had made a difference, and Mrs. Eveleth recognized no familiar faces in the crowd congregated on the dock.  When it became further evident that not only was Naomi de Ruyter forgotten in the city of her birth, but that the very landmarks she remembered had been swept away, there was a moment of disillusion, not free from tears.