When the last hook was fastened, the last glove buttoned, the last curl fluffed into place, mother stood for an instant tapping her foot on the floor.  She looked like a little general.

“Girls,” she said, “there are five hundred people coming to-night from all over the State, and fully two-thirds of them never heard of Dolly Leonard.  We must never spoil other people’s pleasures by flaunting our own personal griefs.  I expect my daughter to conduct herself this evening with perfect cheerfulness and grace.  She owes it to her guests; and”—­mother’s chin went high up in the air—­“I refuse to receive in my house again any one of you girls who mars my daughter’s debutante party by tears or hysterics.  You may go now.”

We went, silently berating the brutal harshness of grown people.  We went, airily, flutteringly, luminously, like a bunch of butterflies.  At the head of the stairs the music caught us up in a maelstrom of excitement and whirled us down into the throng of pleasure.  And when we reached the drawing-room and found mother we felt as though we were walking on air.  We thought it was self-control.  We were not old enough to know it was mostly “youth.”

My debutante party was the gayest party ever given in our town.  We seven girls were like sprites gone mad.  We were like fairy torches that kindled the whole throng.  We flitted among the palms like will-o’-the-wisps.  We danced the toes out of our satin slippers.  We led our old boy-friends a wild chase of young love and laughter, and because our hearts were like frozen lead within us we sought, as it were, “to warm both hands at the fires of life.”  We trifled with older men.  We flirted, as it were, with our fathers.

My debutante party turned out a revel.  I have often wondered if my mother was frightened.  I don’t know what went on in the other girls’ brains, but mine were seared with the old-world recklessness—­“Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die.” We die!

I had a lover—­a boy lover.  His name was Gordon.  He was twenty-one years old, and he had courted me with boyish seriousness for three years.  Mother had always pooh-poohed his love-story and said:  “Wait, wait.  Why, my daughter isn’t even out yet.  Wait till she’s out.”

And Gordon had narrowed his near-sighted eyes ominously and shut his lips tight.  “Very well,” he had answered, “I will wait till she is out—­but no longer.”

He was rich, he was handsome, he was well-born, he was strong, but more than all that he held my fancy with a certain thrilling tenacity that frightened me while it lured me.  And I had always looked forward to my debutante party on my eighteenth birthday with the tingling realization, half joy, half fear, that on that day I should have to settle once and forever with—­man.