She turned abruptly toward her home.  “In the meantime I am going back to give the baby his bath,” she thought.  She glanced at the watch on her gloved wrist.  And a man who looked like a detective, or a villain in the “movies,” looked after her in an envious way.

“Who’s her date with!” he wondered.

CHAPTER XXI

The days dragged by.  She had anxious times.  What would Sally Crothers be like?  “And what in the world will she think of me?  If she doesn’t like me—­very much—­the very first time, I’ll have lost my chance.  For she’s busy, her life is full of things—­planning gardens and running about with her friends.  And she won’t so much as bother her head!” Ethel felt a dismal sinking.  In vain she strove to assure herself.  Joe, Nourse and then Dwight, one after the other, had all bowed down before her.  “Oh, that was very simple!” she thought.  “They’re only men!” It would be a woman this time, and one of the most brilliant kind.  “What a dull little fool she’ll find me, in spite of all I do or say!” It would be all the more difficult because Mrs. Crothers was older.  “That will count against me.  No doubt she’s beginning to show her age; and I’m young, and she doesn’t want any young things to come snooping about her husband!  Then there’s Amy and the quarrel they had, and she’ll put me and Amy in the same class!  I’ll have all that to fight against!” The idea of settling everything all in one brief encounter.  Oh, it was too maddening!

“Now, Ethel Lanier, for goodness’ sake stop fidgeting like a nervous old maid!  This isn’t the minister coming to call!”

On the day before the expected call, Ethel was just on the point of going out for the afternoon to do some shopping and shake off these silly fears, when the telephone rang and a few moments later the maid came in and told her there was a visitor downstairs.  In an instant with a rush of excitement Ethel knew it was Sally at last.  Dwight, in his easy, careless way, had mixed his dates and was bringing Sally a day ahead!  How stupid of him!  “What have I on?”

“Did she come up?” she breathlessly asked.

“No, Mrs. Lanier, she’s waiting below.”

“Did she give her name?”

“Yes—­Mrs. Carr.”

“Oh.”  Ethel gasped and sank down in a heap.  “All right, ask her to come up,” she said, in a tone of indifference.

When the maid had gone, she almost called her back.  She did not want to see Fanny Carr.  Still—­why not?  Oh, let her come.  And in the two or three minutes that followed, Ethel passed from a mood of depression to one of easy good-natured contempt.  She was no longer afraid of Fanny, for Ethel was getting Joe in hand.  “And as soon as I do,” she reflected, “and my husband makes a name as an architect doing great big things, what harm can Fanny do me?” As she thought of the brilliant people who were so soon to be her friends, she looked upon Fanny Carr and her like with no more hatred but only compassion.  What stupid lives they were leading.