Margaret flushed.  “None too well,” she replied.

“Oh, well, dear, I don’t see how you are to blame.”

“I can say that Miss Wallingford is not well, I suppose,” said Margaret, and that was what she did say, but with disastrous results.

Margaret, ravishing in white lace, sprinkled with little gold butterflies, had taken her place at the head of her table.  Emma was serving the first course and she was making her little speech concerning the unfortunate indisposition of her guest of honour when she was suddenly interrupted by that guest herself, an image of sulky wrath, clad in the blue and black costume pertaining to South Mordan, Illinois.

“I am perfectly well.  She is telling an awful whopper,” proclaimed this amazing girl.  “I won’t dress up and come to dinner because I won’t.  She trapped me into a woman’s club this afternoon and tried to get me to make a speech without even telling me what she meant to do and now I won’t do anything.”

With that Miss Wallingford disappeared and unmistakable stamps were heard upon the stairs.  One woman giggled convulsively; another took a glass of water and choked.  A man laughed honestly.  Wilbur was quite pale.  Margaret was imperturbable.  Karl von Rosen, who was one of the guests and who sat behind Annie Eustace, looked at Margaret with wonder.  “Was this the way of women?” he thought.  He did not doubt for one minute that the Western girl had spoken the truth.  It had been brutal and homely, but it had been the truth.  Little Annie Eustace, who had been allowed to come to a dinner party for the first time in her life and who looked quite charming in an old, much mended, but very fine India muslin and her grandmother’s corals, did not, on the contrary, believe one word of Miss Wallingford’s.

Her sympathy was all with her Margaret.  It was a horrible situation and her dear Margaret was the victim of her own hospitality.  She looked across the table at Alice Mendon for another sympathiser, but Alice was talking busily to the man at her right about a new book.  She had apparently not paid much attention.  Annie wondered how it could have escaped her.  That horrid girl had spoken so loudly.  She looked up at Von Rosen.  “I am so sorry for poor Margaret,” she whispered.  Von Rosen looked down at her very gently.  This little girl’s belief in her friend was like a sacred lily, not to be touched or soiled.

“Yes,” he said and Annie smiled up at him comfortably.  Von Rosen was glad she sat beside him.  He thought her very lovely, and there was a subtle suggestion of something besides loveliness.  He thought that daintily mended India muslin exquisite, and also the carved corals,—­bracelets on the slender wrists, a necklace—­resting like a spray of flowers on the girlish neck, a comb in the soft hair which Annie had arranged becomingly and covered from her aunt’s sight with a lace scarf.  She felt deceitful about her hair, but how could she help it?