Conversation veered naturally to the subject of the war.  Edington had tried for a commission in an officers’ training-camp and failed.  He was extraordinarily frank about it all, and good-natured at the chaffing that Mrs. Condor and Stillman threw at him.

“I’m going to wait now and be drafted,” he announced.  “As long as I failed to make a high grade I want to begin at the bottom and see the whole picture.”

Claire rather waited for a word from Stillman as to his convictions on the subject.  Of course one could see that he was over the draft age, still....  For the most part she was silent, but happy and content.  By contributing her share to the evening’s entertainment she had justified her presence.  Wine as a factor in midnight suppers was a new but not a revolutionary experience to Claire Robson, but she gasped a bit when the maid passed cigarettes to the ladies.  And yet she felt a delicious sense of being a party to something quite daring and outre, although she did not have either courage or skill to enjoy one of the slender, gold-tipped delights.

The time for departure finally came.  Claire rose reluctantly.  Mrs. Condor, slipping one arm in Phil Edington’s and the other in Claire’s, sauntered with them toward the entrance hall.

“I say,” ventured Edington as Stillman caught up to the group.  “What’s the matter with just us four dropping down to the Palace for a whirl or two?”

Claire stared.  She had not grown used to the novelty of being included, but any instinctive objections to the plan were promptly silenced by Mrs. Condor’s enthusiastic approval.

They arrived at the Palace Hotel shortly before midnight.  The Rose Room was crowded.  All the tables seemed filled, and Claire had a moment of disappointment caused by the fear that their party would be unable to gain admittance.  But young Edington’s presence soon set any uneasiness on that score at rest, and a place was evolved with deftness and despatch.  The novelty of the situation to Claire was nothing compared with her matter-of-fact acceptance of it.  She was neither self-conscious nor timid.  Her three companions had a way of tacitly including her in even their trivial chatter that was unmistakable, though hard to define.  She felt that she was one of them, and she blossomed in this strange new warmth like a chilled blossom at the final approach of a belated spring.  All evening her starved sense of self-importance had been feeding greedily upon the compliments that had come her way.  There had been her mother’s rather apologetic words of approval at her appearance, to begin with, then Mrs. Condor’s appreciation at the piano, and finally a word dropped by one of the women who had shared a mirror with her at the hour of departure.

“How do you manage your hair, Miss Robson?” the other had said, digging viciously at her shifting locks with a hairpin.  “I do declare you’re the only woman in the room that looks presentable.”