“Hello!” said Miss Leavitt.  “Here we are again!  Did you have a merry—–­”

She stopped short, her eyes fastened on a tiny spray of pearly bells half hidden in the folds of the other’s black silk blouse.  For an instant she forgot what she had meant to say, gasped slightly, closed her lips, opened them as if to speak, shut her teeth together with a snap, swallowed heavily, and went on where she had broken off—­“Christmas?”

Win thanked her, said “Yes,” and asked politely how Miss Leavitt had spent her holiday.  This gave the girl with red hair time to control the temper which accompanied it.  But if, in that brief interval of uncertainty, she had burst out with the fierce insult which burned her tongue, never again could she have ventured to claim friendship with Winifred Child.  And if she had lost her right to claim it, all the future might have been different for one of them.

CHAPTER XIX

“YES” TO ANYTHING

At last it was July, and New York felt like a vast hermetically sealed Turkish bath into which all were free to enter, but once in, must remain, as there were no exits and no closing hours.  Most of the people you read about in the Sunday supplements (except those who commit murders and such things) had escaped to the sea or mountains before the Turkish bath opened for the summer.  But there is never anything in Sunday supplements about the assistants in department stores, for they are fashionable only in restricted districts, and they do not commit murders and such things, though they might occasionally enjoy doing so.

It had been, said the newspapers, an exceptionally gay winter and spring.  Seldom had there been so many beautiful and important debutantes.  Lovely girls and admiring men had decorated each page of the calendar, like rose petals.  There had been cup races for automobiles, and football and baseball matches for men and girls, and other matches less noisy but almost as emotional.  There had been dinners and balls, first nights at the opera, Washington’s Birthday week-end house parties in the Adirondacks, and Easter church parades for those who had not gone abroad or to Florida.  Among those who chose Florida (there had been a great deal about this in the Sunday supplements) were Miss Rolls and her brother.  Ena had collapsed under an alleged attack of grippe after Lord Raygan went away and his engagement with Portia (alias “Pobbles”) Gregory—­the rich Miss Gregory—­was announced.  Some people were mean enough to say that it was not grippe but grief which laid Ena low in the height of the season; and if there was anything in this gossip, the grief would have been greater had Miss Rolls known that she herself was (indirectly) responsible for the happy ending of Raygan’s romance.