Peter, very lithe, very big, gloriously happy, played in one set, and, winning, came to throw himself on the grass at Susan’s feet, panting and hot.  This made Susan the very nucleus of the gathering group, the girls strolled up under their lazily twirling parasols, the men ranged themselves beside Peter on the lawn.  Susan said very little; again she found the conversation a difficult one to enter, but to-day she did not care; it was a curious, and, as she was to learn later, a characteristic conversation, and she analyzed it lazily as she listened.

There was a bright insincerity about everything they said, a languid assumption that nothing in the world was worth an instant’s seriousness, whether it was life or death, tragedy or pathos.  Susan had seen this before in Peter, she saw him in his element now.  He laughed incessantly, as they all did.  The conversation called for no particular effort; it consisted of one or two phrases repeated constantly, and with varying inflections, and interspersed by the most trivial and casual of statements.  To-day the phrase, “Would a nice girl do that?” seemed to have caught the general fancy.  Susan also heard the verb to love curiously abused.

“Look out, George—­your racket!” some girl said vigorously.

“Would a nice girl do that?  I nearly put your eye out, didn’t I?  I tell you all I’m a dangerous character,” her neighbor answered laughingly.

“Oh, I love that!” another girl’s voice said, adding presently, “Look at Louise’s coat.  Don’t you love it?”

“I love it,” said several voices.  Another languidly added, “I’m crazy about it.”

“I’m crazy about it,” said the wearer modestly, “Aunt Fanny sent it.”

“Can a nice girl do that?” asked Peter, and there was a general shout.

“But I’m crazy about your aunt,” some girl asserted, “you know she told Mother that I was a perfect little lady—­honestly she did!  Don’t you love that?”

“Oh, I love that,” Emily Saunders said, as freshly as if coining the phrase.  “I’m crazy about it!”

“Don’t you love it?  You’ve got your aunt’s number,” they all said.  And somebody added thoughtfully, “Can a nice girl do that?”

How sure of themselves they were, how unembarrassed and how marvelously poised, thought Susan.  How casually these fortunate young women could ask what friends they pleased to dinner, could plan for to-day, to-morrow, for all the days that were!  Nothing to prevent them from going where they wanted to go, buying what they fancied, doing as they pleased!  Susan felt that an impassable barrier stood between their lives and hers.

Late in the afternoon Miss Ella, driving in with a gray-haired young man in a very smart trap, paid a visit to the tennis court, and was rapturously hailed.  She was evidently a great favorite.

“See here, Miss Brown,” she called out, after a few moments, noticing Susan, “don’t you want to come for a little spin with me?”