Never did any girl, flushing, dimpling, shrugging her shoulders over such a recital, have a more appreciative listener.  Stephen Bocqueraz’s sympathetic look met hers whenever she looked up; he nodded, agreed, frowned thoughtfully or laughed outright.  They sat through the next dance, and through half the next, hidden in one of the many diminutive “parlors” that surrounded the ball-room, and when Susan was surrendered to an outraged partner she felt that she and the great man were fairly started toward a real friendship, and that these attractive boys she was dancing with were really very young, after all.

“Remember Stephen Bocqueraz that Brownie introduced to you just before supper?” asked Ella, as they went home, yawning, sleepy and headachy, the next day.  Ella had been playing cards through the supper hour.

“Perfectly!” Susan answered, flushing and smiling.

“You must have made a hit,” Ella remarked, “because—­I’m giving him a big dinner on Tuesday, at the Palace—­and when I talked to him he asked if you would be there.  Well, I’m glad you had a nice time, kiddy, and we’ll do it again!”

Susan had thanked her gratefully more than once, but she thanked her again now.  She felt that she truly loved Ella, so big and good natured and kind.

Emily was a little bit cold when Susan told her about the ball, and the companion promptly suppressed the details of her own successes, and confined her recollections to the girls who had asked for Emily, and to generalities.  Susan put her wilting orchids in water, and went dreamily through the next two or three days, recovering from the pleasure and excitement.  It was almost a week before Emily was quite herself again; then, when Isabel Wallace came running in to Emily’s sick-room to beg Susan to fill a place at their dinner-table at a few hours’ notice, Susan’s firm refusal quite won Emily’s friendship back.

“Isabel’s a dear,” said Emily, contentedly settling down with the Indian bead-work in which she and Susan had had several lessons, and with which they filled some spare time, “but she’s not a leader.  I took you up, so now Isabel does!  I knew—­I felt sure that, if Ella let you borrow that dress, Isabel would begin to patronize you!”

It was just one of Emily’s nasty speeches, and Emily really wasn’t well, so Susan reminded herself, when the hot, angry color burned in her face, and an angry answer came to her mind.  What hurt most was that it was partly true; Emily had taken her up, and, when she ceased to be all that Emily required of sympathy and flattery and interest, Emily would find someone else to fill Miss Brown’s place.  Without Emily she was nobody, and it did not console Susan to reflect that, had Emily’s fortune been hers and Emily in her position, the circumstances would be exactly reversed.  Just the accident of having money would have made Miss Brown the flattered and admired, the safe and secure one; just the not having it would have pushed Emily further even than Susan was from the world of leisure and beauty and luxury.