At heart, however, her manner belied her; Magsie had little self-confidence.  She lived in a French girl’s terror that youth would leave her before she had time to make a good match.  If nobody knew better than Magsie that she was pretty, also nobody knew better that she was not clever.  Men tired of her dimples and giggles and round eyes.  Bryan Masters admired her, to be sure, but then Bryan Masters was also a divorced man, and an actor whose popularity was already on the wane.  Richie Gardiner admired her in his pathetic, hopeless way, and Richie was young and rich.  But Magsie shuddered away from Richie’s coughing and fainting; his tonics and his diet had no place in her robust and joyous scheme of life.  Besides, all Magsie’s world would envy her capture of Greg; he belonged to New York.  And Richie’s father had been a miner, and his mother was “impossible!”

Magsie dressed exquisitely for the tea; it seemed to her that she had never been so pleasantly excited in her life.  She felt a part of the humming, crowded city, the spring wind and the uncertain sky.  Life was thrilling and surprising.

Half-past four o’clock came, and Warren came.  They were in Magsie’s little apartment now, and she could go into his arms.  Warren was rather quiet as they went out to tea, but Magsie did not notice it.

As a matter of fact, the man was bewildered; he was tired and worried about his work; but that was the least of it.  He could not believe that the day’s dazing and flying memories were real—­the Albany train, Rachael’s room, the hospital, Magsie and the Biltmore breakfast-room, Rachael’s room again, and now again Magsie.

Were the lawsuits about which one read in the papers based on no more than this?  Apparently not.  Magsie seemed perfectly confident of the outcome; Rachael had not shown any doubt.  One woman had practically presented him to the other; the law was to be consulted.

The law?  How would those letters of Magsie’s read if the law got hold of them?  His memory flew from note to note.  These hastily scratched words would be flung to the wind of gossip, that wind that blew so merrily among the houses where he was known.  He had called Magsie his “wonder-child” and his “good little bad girl!” He had given her rings and sashes and a gold purse and a hat and white fox furs—­any one gift he had made her was innocent enough in itself!  But taken with all the others—­

Magsie was in high feather; some tiresome preliminaries, and the day was won!  She had not planned so definite a campaign, but it was all coming about in a fashion that more than fulfilled her plans.  So, said Magsie to herself, stirring her tea, that was to be her fate:  Paris, America, the stage, and then a rich marriage?  Well, so be it.  She could not complain.

“Greg,” she said a dozen times, “isn’t it all like a dream?”