“Oh, I’m all right!” was the reply, and Ethel smiled excitedly.  The chorus of exclamations that had greeted Joe and herself had been so warm and gay and real.  There had been no time for awkwardness.  In a moment after their entrance, the hubbub of talk and laughter had gone right on as though nothing had happened.  At table it continued still, and she felt herself borne along on the tide.  She looked at Joe, who was on Sally’s right, and she thought he was doing exceedingly well.  And as for these old friends of his, as she rapidly scanned their faces, they looked far from formidable.  On her left side Sally’s husband, a tall dark creature with nice eyes, was telling her about the men—­two or three writers, an architect and a portrait painter rather well known, whose pictures she had read about.  She had already learned from Sally what the women did with themselves.  They worked, they went to women’s clubs, they dined and did the social side.  One of them spoke for suffrage, another was a sculptress, one sang, one had a baby.  They did not look solemn in the least.  Everything went so naturally.

“Well, here I am at last,” she thought.  She kept throwing quick little glances about.  Was it all so much worth while, she wondered.  Yes, they were very pleasant and nice.  But she had expected—­well, something more, a kind of a brilliancy in their eyes and the things they were saying.  For here were Art and Music, Movements, Causes and Ideas, and goodness only knew what else!  Here were the people who really saw something richer and deeper in life than the sort of existence Amy had led—­great bright vistas leading off from the city as it was today to some dazzling promised land.  She thought of the little history “prof.”  They were so cosy about it here!  She did not want them to be “highbrows”—­Heaven forbid!  But they took it all so easily!

She thought of the struggles she had been through in order to get where she was tonight, the ardent hopes and the despairs, and all the eager planning.  And just for a moment there came to her some little realization of those other women still outside, in this city of so many worlds, each with her particular world, her bright and shining goal, her shrine, and pushing and scheming to get in.  She recalled the fierce light in Amy’s eyes and the tone of her voice:  “I may be too late!” Amy had wanted only money, and people like that.  But how hard she had wanted it! . . .  These people took it so pleasantly; they seemed so snug in their little group.  She wondered if she would become like that.  No, she decided, most certainly not!  And suddenly she realized that this was only one more step in the life she was to lead in this town.  These people?  For a time perhaps.

Then others—­always others!  That was how it was in New York.

Ethel gave a queer little laugh—­which at once she pretended had been caused by something Sally’s husband had said.  And she listened to him attentively now.  “There’s so much time for everything!  I’m only twenty-five!” she thought.  She turned to the painter on her right, and was soon talking rapidly.