a shabby thing—­and what Rose did was shabby—­will always be on the defensive about it.  They can’t let it alone.  They’re always making references you can’t ignore; always seeing references in perfectly harmless things that other people say.  And the only society where they’re ever happy, is that of a lot of other people with shady, shabby things that they’re on the defensive about.  And they all get together and call it Bohemia.  And they sprawl around in studios and talk about sex and try to feel superior and emancipated.  Well, maybe they are.  All I say is they don’t belong with us.  Oh, you know it’s true!  You hate that as much as I do.”

“Oh, yes,” said Violet.  “Only, since I’ve seen Rose—­even for that minute—­it doesn’t seem possible to apply it to her.  You know, I don’t believe she’s on the stage any more.”

Constance asked with good-humored satire, “Why?  From the way she looked in the taxi-cab?”

“Yes,” said Violet.  “Just from that.  There she was in an open taxi, on Fifth Avenue, at half past four in the afternoon, and she didn’t look somehow, as if how she looked mattered.  She wasn’t on parade a bit.  She looked smart and successful, but busy.  Not exactly irritated at being held up in the block, but keen to get out of it.  The way Frank or John would look on the way to a directors’ meeting.  And the way she smiled when she saw us ...  It’s not quite exactly her old smile, either, but it’s just as fascinating.  It pleased her to see us all right.  But as for her caring a rap what we thought—­well, you couldn’t imagine it.  Defensive indeed!  And poor old John just about went out of his head with disappointment when we lost her.”

“Oh, I’ll never deny she’s a charmer,” said Constance.  “All the same ...”

“You wait till you see her!” said Violet.

Violet’s report of the glimpse she had had of Rose, together with what were felt to be the rather amusingly extravagant set of deductions she had made from it, spread in diminishing ripples of discussion through all their circle.  And then, concentrically, into wider circles.  Most of their own intimate group took Constance’s attitude.  Forced to concede a lively curiosity as to what had become of Rose, they still professed that the way of discretion lay not in gratifying it; at least not at first-hand.  When they were in New York, they kept an eye open for a sight of her, on the stage and elsewhere, and an alert ear for news, finding a sort of fearful joy in wondering what they would do if an encounter took place.  They were mildly derisive with Violet over her volte-face.

Secretly, Violet was a good deal closer to agreeing with them than she’d admit.  For, as the effect of her encounter lost its vividness, with the recession of the encounter itself, she began to suspect that she had gone unwarranted lengths in her interpretations from it.  But under fire, she stuck to her guns.  Her husband, who delighted in her public attitude, was amazed when she rounded upon him in their domestic sanctuary, and emphatically took the other side.  In his disgust, he made a very penetrating observation, whose cogency Violet realized, though she loftily ignored it at the time it was uttered.  But three or four nights later, at an opera dinner at the Heaton-Duncans, she fired it off shamelessly, as a shot out of her own locker.