of Stephen at the dinner; and yet she had not been conscious of any particular wish to see him again, or to sit at his side through two hours of embarrassment and uncertainty.  Now, on the way home, she was suffering acutely from the burden of failure, from the smarting realization of her own ignorance and awkwardness.  Her one bitter-sweet consolation was the knowledge that she had been “a good loser,” that she had carried off her humiliation with a scornful pride which must have blighted like frost any tenderly budding shoots of compassion.  “I’ll show them that they mustn’t pity me!” she thought, while her eyes blazed in the darkness.  “I’ll prove to them that I think myself every bit as good as they are!” She knew that her manner had been ungracious; but she knew also that something stronger than her will, some instinct which was rooted deep in the secret places of her nature, had made it impossible for her to appear otherwise.  Impassioned, undisciplined, and capable of fierce imaginative loyalties and aversions, the strongest force in her character was this bitter ineradicable pride.  To accept no benefits that she could not return; to fall under no obligation that would involve a feeling of gratitude; to pay the piper to the utmost penny whenever she called the tune—­these were the only laws that she acknowledged.  Though she longed ardently for the admiration of Stephen Culpeper, she would have died rather than relinquish the elfin mockery of her challenge.

“Well, did you enjoy it, Patty?” Her father turned to her with sudden tenderness, though the frown produced by some engrossing train of thought still gathered his heavy brows.

She caught his hand while her small face relaxed from its expression of rigid disdain.  “I had simply the time of my life,” she responded with convincing animation.  “That Mrs. Page is the most beautiful woman I ever saw—­but she can’t be very young.  I wonder what she was like when she was my age?”

Vetch laughed.  “Not like a short-haired imp with green eyes anyway,” he replied.  “Mrs. Stribling looked very handsome, too, I thought.”

“Oh, she’s handsome enough,” admitted Patty.  “But she hasn’t any sense.  I listened to what she was saying, and she just asked questions all the time.  Mrs. Page is different.  You can tell that she has been all over the world.  She knows things.”

“Yes, I suppose she does,” said Vetch.  “What did you think of Benham?”

“He is good looking,” answered the girl deliberately, “but I don’t like him.  He is making fun of you.”

“Is he?” returned Vetch curiously.  “Now, I wonder if you’re right about that.  At any rate he asked me a question to-night that I should like a chance to answer on the platform.”

“He was in the army,” said Patty, “and every one says he was a hero.  The women were talking about him while you were smoking.  They all admire him so.  It seems that he went into an officer’s training camp as soon as war was declared though he was over age; and then just recently he has done something that every one thinks splendid.  He refused a tremendous fee from some corporation—­what did they mean by a corporation?—­because he thought the money was made dishonestly.  Mrs. Page says he has as many public virtues as a civic forum.  What is a forum, Father?”