Mary Alice was reasonably sure this lady was not “a millionairess or anything like that,” and she didn’t think she was another prima donna.  The lady’s name meant nothing to her.

“Well,” their hostess said as Godmother greeted her, “now the party can begin—­here’s Mary Alice! Two Mary Alices!” she added as she caught sight of the second one.  “Who says this isn’t going to be a real party?”

Evidently they liked Godmother in this house; and evidently they were prepared to like Mary Alice.  Then, before she had time to think any more about it, three or four persons came up to greet Godmother, who didn’t try to introduce Mary Alice at all—­just let her “tag along” without any responsibility.

Mary Alice found that she liked to hear these people talk.  They had a kind of eagerness about many things that made them all seem to have much more to say than could possibly be said then and there.  Mary Alice felt just as she thought the lady must have felt who, after the man standing beside Mary Alice had made one or two remarks, in a brief turn the conversation took towards the Children’s Theatre, cried:  “Oh!  I want to talk to you about that.”  And they moved away somewhere and sat down together.  Then, somehow, from that the general talk glanced off on to some actors and actresses who had come out of the foreign quarter where the Children’s Theatre was, and were astonishing up-town folk with the fire and fervour of their art.  Some one who seemed to know a good deal about the speaking voice, commented on the curious change of tone, from resonant throat sounds to nasal head sounds, which generally marked the Slav’s transition from his native tongue to English; and gave several examples in such excellent imitation that every one was amused, even Mary Alice, who knew nothing about the persons imitated.

Then, some one who had been recently to California and seen Madame Modjeska and been privileged to hear some chapters of the memoirs she was writing, told an incident or two from them about the experiences of that great Polish artiste in learning English.  A man asked this lady if she knew what Modjeska was going to do with her Memoirs when they were ready for publication; and they two moved away to talk more about that.  And so it went.  Mary Alice didn’t often know what the talk was about; but she was so interested in it that she found herself wishing they would talk more about each thing and wouldn’t break up and drift off the way they did.  They had such a wide, wide world—­these people—­and they seemed to see everything that went on around them, to feel everything that can go on within.  And they made no effort about anything.  They talked about the Red Cross campaign against tuberculosis, or big game hunting in Africa, or the unerring accuracy of steel-workers on the skeletons of skyscrapers, throwing red-hot rivets across yawning spaces and striking the bucket, held to receive them, every time.  And their talk was as simple, as eager, as unaffected, as hers had been as she talked with Godmother about her blue silk dress.  All those things were a part of their world, as the blue dress was a part of hers.