“You’ll get your lovely dress all mussed,” said old Mary in high approval.

“Never mind, Mary!” her mistress said in luxurious ease before the fire, “there are plenty of dresses!”

A week later Warren came in, in the late afternoon, to say that he had met Miss Clay downtown, and they had had tea together.  She suggested tea, and he couldn’t well get out of it.  He would have telephoned Rachael had he fancied she would care to come.  She had been out?  That was what he thought.  But how about a little dinner for Magsie?  Did she think it would be awfully stupid?

“No, she’s not stupid,” Rachael said cordially.  “Let’s do it!”

“Oh, I don’t mean stupid for us,” Warren hastened to explain.  “I mean stupid for her!”

“Why should it be stupid for her?” Rachael looked at him in surprise.

“Well, she’s awfully young, and she’s getting a lot of attention, and perhaps she’d think it a bore!”

“I don’t imagine Magsie Clay would find a dinner here in her honor a bore,” Rachael said in delicate scorn.  “Why, think who she is, Warren—­a nurse’s daughter!  Her father was—­I don’t know what—­an enlisted man, who rose to be a sergeant!”

“I don’t believe it!” he said flatly.

“It’s true, Warren.  I’ve known that for years—­everybody knows it!”

“Well,” Warren Gregory said stubbornly, “she’s making a great hit just the same.  She’s going up to the Royces’ next week for the Bowditch theatricals, and she’s asked to the Pinckard dinner dance.  She may not go on account of her mourning.”

“Her mourning is rather absurd under the circumstances,” Rachael said vaguely, antagonized against anyone he chose to defend.  “And if people choose to treat her as if she were Mrs. Frothingham’s daughter instead of what she really is, it’s nice for Magsie!  But I don’t see why we should.”

“We might because she is such a nice, simple girl,” Warren suggested, “and because we like her!  I’m not trying to keep in the current; I’ve no social axe to grind; I merely suggested it, and if you don’t want to—­”

“Oh, of course, if you put it that way!” Rachael said with a faint shrug..  “I’ll get hold of some eligibles—­we’ll have Charlie, and have rather a youthful dinner!”

Warren, who was shaving, was silent for a few minutes, then he said thoughtfully: 

“I don’t imagine that Charlie is the sort of person who will interest her.  She may be only twenty-two, but she is older than most girls in things like that.  She’s had more offers now than you could shake a stick at—­”

“She told you about them?”

“Well, in a general way, yes—­that is, she doesn’t want to marry, and she hates the usual attitude, that a lot of college kids have to be trotted out for her benefit!”

This having been her own exact attitude a few seconds before, Rachael flushed a little resentfully.

“What does she want to do?”