“Especially something,” said the old lady.  “Where are their husbands?”

“Why, some of them are at home, and some are here.”

“Where?” The old lady turned her eyes on a couple that sailed by her, the man talking very earnestly to his companion, who was listening breathlessly.  “Is that her husband?”

“Well, no; that is not, I believe.”

“No; I’ll be bound it is not.  You never saw a married man talking to his wife in public in that way—­unless they were talking about the last month’s bills.  Why, it is perfectly brazen.”

Keith laughed.

“Where is her husband?” she demanded, as Mrs. Wentworth floated by, a vision of brocaded satin and lace and white shoulders, supported by Ferdy Wickersham, who was talking earnestly and looking down into her eyes languishingly.

“Oh, her husband is here.”

“Well, he had better take her home to her little children.  If ever I saw a face that I distrusted it is that man’s.”

“Why, that is Ferdy Wickersham.  He is one of the leaders of society.  He is considered quite an Adonis,” observed Keith.

“And I don’t think Adonis was a very proper person for a young woman with children to be dancing with in attire in which only her husband should see her.”  She shut her lips grimly.  “I know him,” she added.  “I know all about them for three generations.  One of the misfortunes of age is that when a person gets as old as I am she knows so much evil about people.  I knew that young man’s grandfather when he was a worthy mechanic.  His wife was an uppish hussy who thought herself better than her husband, and their daughter was a pretty girl with black eyes and rosy cheeks.  They sent her off to school, and after the first year or two she never came back.  She had got above them.  Her father told me as much.  The old man cried about it.  He said his wife thought it was all right; that his girl had married a smart young fellow who was a clerk in a bank; but that if he had a hundred other children he’d never teach them any more than to read, write, and figure.  And to think that her son should be the Adonis dancing with my cousin Everett Wentworth’s daughter-in-law!  Why, my Aunt Wentworth would rise from her grave if she knew it!”

“Well, times have changed,” said Keith, laughing.  “You see they are as good as anybody now.”

“Not as good as anybody—­you mean as rich as anybody.”

“That amounts to about the same thing here, doesn’t it?”

“I believe it does, here,” said the old lady, with a sniff.  “Well,” she said after a pause, “I think I will go back and tell Matilda what I have seen.  And if you are wise you will come with me, too.  This is no place for plain, country-bred people like you and me.”

Keith, laughing, said he had an engagement, but he would like to have the privilege of taking her home, and then he could return.

“With a married woman, I suppose?  Yes, I will be bound it is,” she added as Keith nodded.  “You see the danger of evil association.  I shall write to your father and tell him that the sooner he gets you out of New York the better it will be for your morals and your manners.  For you are the only man, except Norman, who has been so provincial as to take notice of an unknown old woman.”