Leila blazed.  “She’s beautiful——­”

“To you, duckie, because you love her.  But the average man wouldn’t call Mary Ballard beautiful.”

“I don’t care—­the un-average one would.  And Mary Ballard wouldn’t look at an ordinary man.”

“No man is ordinary when he is in love.”

“Oh, with you,” Leila’s tone was scornful, “love’s just a game.”

Lilah rose, crossed the room with swift steps, and kissed her.  “Don’t let me ruffle your plumage, Jenny Wren,” she said; “I’m a screaming peacock this morning.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I’m not the perfect success I planned to be.  Oh, I can see it.  I’ve been here for three months, and people stare at me, but they don’t call on me—­not the ones I want to know.  And it’s because I am too—­emphasized.  In New York you have to be emphatic to be anything at all.  Otherwise you are lost in the crowd.  That’s why Fifth Avenue is full of people in startling clothes.  In the mob you won’t be singled out simply for your pretty face—­there are too many pretty faces; so it is the woman who strikes some high note of conspicuousness who attracts attention.  But you’re like a flock of cooing doves, you Washington girls.  You’re as natural and frank and unaffected as a—­a covey of partridges.  I believe I am almost jealous of your Mary Ballard this morning.”

“Not because of Porter?”

“Not because of any man.  But there are things about her which I can’t acquire.  I’ve the money and the clothes and the individuality.  But there’s a simplicity about her, a directness, that comes from years of association with things I haven’t had.  Before I came here, I thought money could buy anything.  But it can’t.  Mary Ballard couldn’t be anything else.  And I—­I can be anything from a siren to a soubrette, but I can’t be a lady—­not the kind that you are—­and Mary Ballard.”

Saying which, the tropic creature in flamingo red sat down beside the cooing dove, and continued: 

“You were right just now, when you said that the un-average man would love Mary Ballard.  Porter Bigelow loves her, and he tops all the other men I’ve met.  And he’d never love me.  He will laugh with me and joke with me, and if he wasn’t in love with Mary, he might flirt with me—­but I’m not his kind—­and he knows it.”

She sighed and shrugged her shoulders.  “There are other fish in the sea, of course, and Porter Bigelow is Mary’s.  But I give you my word, Leila Dick, that when I catch sight of his blessed red head towering above the others—­like a lion-hearted Richard, I can’t see anybody else.”

For the first time since she had known her, Leila was drawn to the other by a feeling of sympathetic understanding.

“Are you in love with him, Lilah?” she asked; timidly.

Lilah stood up, stretching her hands above her head.  “Who knows?  Being in love and loving—­perhaps they are different things, duckie.”