Other guests had come in, and Miss Field was extremely busy, and Ward, helping her officially, was busy, too.  She had indeed offered her place to Isabelle, but Isabelle, spurred by her mother-in-law’s criticism, would not have disturbed her secretary for any consideration now.

“No, no—­stay where you are, my dear!” she had said.  And Miss Field remained.

“Fun to have you down here!” said Ward, in her ear.

Harriet Field had an aside with a maid regarding hot water.  Then she gave Ward an indulgent, an older-sisterly glance.  He was in years almost twenty-two, but at twenty-seven the young woman felt him ages her junior.  Ward was broad and fair, his light brown hair was somewhat tumbled about from the tennis; his fine, strong young throat showed brown where the loose collar turned back.  Even in his flat tennis shoes he stood a clear two inches above Miss Field, although she was not a small woman by any means.  He was a joyous, irresponsible boy, and he and his mother’s secretary had always been good friends since the day, four years ago now, when the silent, somewhat grave Harriet Field had first made her appearance in the family.  Ward was so much a child in those days that Harriet used to go with him to pick out suits and shirts, and to buy matinee seats for him and his school friends, and they laughed now to remember his favourite and invariable luncheon order of potato salad and French pastries.  Nina had had a nurse then, and Harriet practised French with both the boy and girl, but now the nurse was gone, and Ward could buy his own clothes, and Nina went to a finishing school.  So Miss Field had made herself useful in new ways; she was quite indispensable now.  The young people loved her; Richard Carter occasionally said to his wife, “Very clever—­very pretty girl!” which was perhaps as close as he ever got to any domestic matter, and Isabelle confided to her almost all her duties and cares.  She patronized Harriet prettily, and told her that she was too pretty to be getting up to the thirties without a fiance, but Harriet only smiled her inscrutable smile, and made no confidences on the subject of admirers.  Nina, insatiably curious, had gathered no more than that Miss Harriet’s father had been a college professor of languages, and that her only relative was a married sister, much older, who had four children, and lived in New Jersey.

She was a master of the art of keeping silent, this young woman, and but for her beauty she might have been as inconspicuous as she sincerely tried to be.  But her simple gowns and her plainly massed hair only served to emphasize the extraordinary distinction of her appearance, and her utmost effort to obliterate herself could not quite keep her from notice.  Men raised their eyebrows, with a significant puckering of the lips, when she slipped quietly through the halls; and women narrowed their eyes, and looked questioningly at one another.  Isabelle, who was far too securely throned to be jealous of any one, sometimes told her that she would make a fortune on the stage, but old Mrs. Carter, who for reasons perfectly comprehensible in an old lady who had once been handsome herself, detested Harriet, and said to her daughter-in-law that in her opinion there was something queer about the girl.