Mela, whom she did not admit to her reasons or feelings always, followed her with the servile admiration she had for all that Christine did; and she took on trust as somehow successful the result of Christine’s obstinacy, when they were allowed to stand against the wall at the back of the room through the whole of the long piece begun just before they came in.  There had been no one to receive them; a few people, in the rear rows of chairs near them, turned their heads to glance at them, and then looked away again.  Mela had her misgivings; but at the end of the piece Miss Vance came up to them at once, and then Mela knew that she had her eyes on them all the time, and that Christine must have been right.  Christine said nothing about their coming late, and so Mela did not make any excuse, and Miss Vance seemed to expect none.  She glanced with a sort of surprise at Conrad, when Christine introduced him; Mela did not know whether she liked their bringing him, till she shook hands with him, and said:  “Oh, I am very glad indeed!  Mr. Dryfoos and I have met before.”  Without explaining where or when, she led them to her aunt and presented them, and then said, “I’m going to put you with some friends of yours,” and quickly seated them next the Marches.  Mela liked that well enough; she thought she might have some joking with Mr. March, for all his wife was so stiff; but the look which Christine wore seemed to forbid, provisionally at least, any such recreation.  On her part, Christine was cool with the Marches.  It went through her mind that they must have told Miss Vance they knew her; and perhaps they had boasted of her intimacy.  She relaxed a little toward them when she saw Beaton leaning against the wall at the end of the row next Mrs. March.  Then she conjectured that he might have told Miss Vance of her acquaintance with the Marches, and she bent forward and nodded to Mrs. March across Conrad, Mela, and Mr. March.  She conceived of him as a sort of hand of her father’s, but she was willing to take them at their apparent social valuation for the time.  She leaned back in her chair, and did not look up at Beaton after the first furtive glance, though she felt his eyes on her.

The music began again almost at once, before Mela had time to make Conrad tell her where Miss Vance had met him before.  She would not have minded interrupting the music; but every one else seemed so attentive, even Christine, that she had not the courage.  The concert went onto an end without realizing for her the ideal of pleasure which one ought to find. in society.  She was not exacting, but it seemed to her there were very few young men, and when the music was over, and their opportunity came to be sociable, they were not very sociable.  They were not introduced, for one thing; but it appeared to Mela that they might have got introduced, if they had any sense; she saw them looking at her, and she was glad she had dressed so much; she was dressed more than any other lady there,