“Well!” said Ina, when she saw this coiffure, and frankly examined it, head well back, tongue meditatively teasing at her lower lip.

For travel Lulu was again wearing Ina’s linen duster—­the old one.

Ninian appeared, in a sack coat—­and his diamond.  His distinctly convex face, its thick, rosy flesh, thick mouth and cleft chin gave Lulu once more that bold sense of looking—­not at him, for then she was shy and averted her eyes—­but at his photograph at which she could gaze as much as she would.  She looked up at him openly, fell in step beside him.  Was he not taking her to the city?  Ina and Dwight themselves were going because she, Lulu, had brought about this party.

“Act as good as you look, Lulie,” Mrs. Bett called after them.  She gave no instructions to Ina who was married and able to shine in her conduct, it seemed.

Dwight was cross.  On the way to the station he might have been heard to take it up again, whatever it was, and his Ina unmistakably said:  “Well, now don’t keep it going all the way there”; and turned back to the others with some elaborate comment about the dust, thus cutting off her so-called lord from his legitimate retort.  A mean advantage.

The city was two hours’ distant, and they were to spend the night.  On the train, in the double seat, Ninian beside her among the bags, Lulu sat in the simple consciousness that the people all knew that she too had been chosen.  A man and a woman were opposite, with their little boy between them.  Lulu felt this woman’s superiority of experience over her own, and smiled at her from a world of fellowship.  But the woman lifted her eyebrows and stared and turned away, with slow and insolent winking.

Ninian had a boyish pride in his knowledge of places to eat in many cities—­as if he were leading certain of the tribe to a deer-run in a strange wood.  Ninian took his party to a downtown cafe, then popular among business and newspaper men.  The place was below the sidewalk, was reached by a dozen marble steps, and the odour of its griddle-cakes took the air of the street.  Ninian made a great show of selecting a table, changed once, called the waiter “my man” and rubbed soft hands on “What do you say?  Shall it be lobster?” He ordered the dinner, instructing the waiter with painstaking gruffness.

“Not that they can touch your cooking here, Miss Lulu,” he said, settling himself to wait, and crumbling a crust.

Dwight, expanding a bit in the aura of the food, observed that Lulu was a regular chef, that was what Lulu was.  He still would not look at his wife, who now remarked: 

“Sheff, Dwightie.  Not cheff.”

This was a mean advantage, which he pretended not to hear—­another mean advantage.

“Ina,” said Lulu, “your hat’s just a little mite—­no, over the other way.”

“Was there anything to prevent your speaking of that before?” Ina inquired acidly.