“What do you mean by people of my class?”

Cally raised a white-gloved hand and put back a tendril of her gay hair.  She looked at him level-eyed.  The man’s constant and cocksure “I,” “me,” “mine,” rubbed her strongly the wrong way.  This was Dr. Vivian’s Settlement, and nobody else’s.  She was convinced that Vivian would have made a far better Director anyway....

Mr. Pond, however, smiled suddenly.  The smile largely transformed his dark face, making it look for the first time quite agreeable, and even kind.

“I mean,” said he, “those who are highly ornamental, but cannot candidly be described as generally useful.”

The reply, for some reason, silenced her.  She thought of Mrs. Page.  The man’s smile faded.

“Not,” said he, “that I don’t consider ornaments of use.  I do, in their place.  Now I must get back to the firing-line.  I can only add that if you are serious about wanting to help me, Miss—­I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name—­you will lose no time in qualifying yourself to be of service.  Obviously you are not so qualified at present.”

He nodded curtly, and turned away.  The admiring populace swallowed him up....

Cally felt as if she had received a severe drubbing.  She felt rebuffed, defeated, depressed, and at the same time vaguely stimulated.  However, the moment for introspective analysis was not now....

“Well, Cally,” said motherly Mrs. McVey, drifting by, “you must feel sort of lonesome—­such a turn-out of old folks I never saw.  I wanted Evey to come, but she said she ’d as soon go to a tea at the Needy Ladies’ Home.”

On the heels of Evey’s mother came Cally’s own, whose watchful eye had been felt from a distance before now.  Possibly mamma had not forgotten what happened the last time Cally came to the Dabney House....

“I saw you talking with Mr. Pond,” said Mrs. Heth, a little aside.  “How did he impress you?”

“He’s the most conceited human being I ever saw,” said Cally.  “I believe he said one or two fairly interesting things.”

“Well—­that’s not a bad recommendation.  I like an important man to think well of himself.  I’ll ask him for my Settlement dinner Saturday, when those Cheritons stop nagging at him.”

Mamma looked slightly flushed beneath her fixed smile; a look which her daughter had no difficulty in understanding.  More than once this afternoon, Cally had encountered significant stares upon herself, instantly removed, which showed with amusing candour that she was the subject of conversation in those quarters.  No more could she assume that this conversation and those stares were but the involuntary offerings of the multitude to beauty and brilliant success.  And yet she did not seem to mind so very much....

“I just gave my Settlement check to Mr. Byrd,” added mamma.  “He was very grateful, but not as grateful as he ought to have been.”

She glided back to her position near the door.  Mrs. McVey, chatting on, observed that the Pond man hadn’t seemed impatient to make her acquaintance, though she had waited round some time to give him the pleasure; also that there were no refreshments but ice-water from the new ten-gallon cooler in the hall.  Then she, in her turn, passed on, as J. Forsythe Avery was discerned steering in a fixed direction through the crowd.