“You see, they did it entirely on my account; they’re awfully lonesome here; and I don’t believe I shall ever learn New York ways either,” she confessed, turning on him the eyes of youth and truthfulness.  “Of course I know a few people; but they’re not—­not the way I expected New York people to be.”  She risked what seemed an involuntary glance at Mabel.  “I’ve seen girls here to-night that I just long to know—­they look so lovely and refined—­but I don’t suppose I ever shall.  New York’s not very friendly to strange girls, is it?  I suppose you’ve got so many of your own already—­and they’re all so fascinating you don’t care!” As she spoke she let her eyes rest on his, half-laughing, half-wistful, and then dropped her lashes while the pink stole slowly up to them.

When he left her he asked if he might hope to find her at home the next day.

The night was fine, and Marvell, having put his cousin into her motor, started to walk home to Washington Square.  At the corner he was joined by Mr. Popple.  “Hallo, Ralph, old man—­did you run across our auburn beauty of the Stentorian?  Who’d have thought old Harry Lipscomb’d have put us onto anything as good as that?  Peter Van Degen was fairly taken off his feet—­pulled me out of Mrs. Monty Thurber’s box and dragged me ’round by the collar to introduce him.  Planning a dinner at Martin’s already.  Gad, young Peter must have what he wants when he wants it!  I put in a word for you—­told him you and I ought to be let in on the ground floor.  Funny the luck some girls have about getting started.  I believe this one’ll take if she can manage to shake the Lipscombs.  I think I’ll ask to paint her; might be a good thing for the spring show.  She’d show up splendidly as a pendant to my Mrs. Van Degen—­Blonde and Brunette...  Night and Morning...  Of course I prefer Mrs. Van Degen’s type—­personally, I must have breeding—­but as a mere bit of flesh and blood... hallo, ain’t you coming into the club?”

Marvell was not coming into the club, and he drew a long breath of relief as his companion left him.

Was it possible that he had ever thought leniently of the egregious Popple?  The tone of social omniscience which he had once found so comic was now as offensive to him as a coarse physical touch.  And the worst of it was that Popple, with the slight exaggeration of a caricature, really expressed the ideals of the world he frequented.  As he spoke of Miss Spragg, so others at any rate would think of her:  almost every one in Ralph’s set would agree that it was luck for a girl from Apex to be started by Peter Van Degen at a Cafe Martin dinner...

Ralph Marvell, mounting his grandfather’s doorstep, looked up at the symmetrical old red house-front, with its frugal marble ornament, as he might have looked into a familiar human face.

“They’re right,—­after all, in some ways they’re right,” he murmured, slipping his key into the door.