But when Maggie, after reading the invitation, tossed it, together with a note from Dick, across to Barney without comment, the color of his entire world changed for that favorite son of Broadway.  The surly gloom of the end of a profitless enterprise became magically an aurora borealis of superior hopes:—­no, something infinitely more substantial than any heaven-painting flare of iridescent colors.

“Maggie, it’s the real thing!  At last!” he cried.

“What is it?” asked Old Jimmie.

Barney gave him the letter.  Jimmie read it through, then handed it back, slowly shaking his head.

“I don’t see nothing to get excited about,” said the ever-doubtful, ever-hesitant Jimmie.  “It’s only an invitation.”

“Aw, hell!” ejaculated the exasperated Barney in disgust.  “If some one handed you a government bond all you could see would be a cigar coupon!  That invitation, together with this note from Dick Sherwood saying he’ll call and take Maggie out, means that the fish is all ready to be landed.  Try to come back to life, Jimmie.  If you knew anything at all about big-league society, you’d know that sending invitations to meet the family—­that’s the way these swells do things when they’re all set to do business.  We’re all ready for the killing—­ the big clean-up!”

He turned to Maggie.  “Great stuff, Maggie.  I knew you could put it over.  Of course you’re going?”

“Of course,” replied Maggie with a composure which was wholly of her manner.

A sudden doubt came out of this glory to becloud Barney’s master mind.  “I don’t know,” he said slowly.  “It’s one proposition to make one of these men swells believe that a woman is the real thing.  And it’s another proposition to put it over on one of these women swells.  They’ve got eyes for every little detail, and they know the difference between the genuine article and an imitation.  I’ve heard a lot about this Miss Sherwood; they say she’s one of the cleverest of the swells.  Think you can walk into her house and put it over on her, Maggie?”

“Of course—­why not?” answered Maggie, again with that composure which was prompted by her pride’s desire to make Barney, and every one else, believe her equal to any situation.

Barney’s animation returned.  “All right.  If you think you can swing it, you can swing it, and the job’s the same as finished and we’re made!”

Left to herself, and the imposing propriety and magnificent stupidity of Miss Grierson, Maggie made no attempt to keep up her appearance of confidence.  All her thoughts were upon this opportunity which insisted upon looking to her like a menace.  She tried to whip her self-confidence, of which she was so proud, into a condition of constant regnancy.  But the plain fact was that Maggie, the misguided child of a stolen birthright, whose soaring spirit was striving so hard to live up to the traditions and conventions of cynicism, whose young ambition it was to outshine and surpass all possible competitors in this world in which she had been placed, who in her pride believed she knew so much of life—­the plain fact was that Maggie was in a state bordering on funk.