“They are certainly remarkable,” answered Mr. Dennison.  After a brief pause he added, “Being a strictly truthful person, Mrs. Littleton, I do not wish to seek shelter behind the rampart which your word ‘remarkable’ affords.  A dinner may be remarkable—­remarkably good, like the one I have just eaten, or remarkably bad.  Some editors would have replied to you as I have done, and yet been capable of a mental reservation unflattering to the ambitious young woman to whom we have been listening.  But without wishing to express an opinion, let me remind you that poetry, like point-lace, needs close scrutiny before its merits can be defined.  I thought I recognized some ancient and well-worn flowers of speech, but my editorial ear and eye may have been deceived.  She has beautiful hair at all events.”

     “’Fair tresses man’s imperial race ensnare;
      And beauty draws us by a single hair.’

“You cynical personage!  I only hope she may prove a genius and that you will realize when too late that you might have discovered her,” said Selma, looking into his face brightly with a knowing smile and tapping her fan against her hand.  She was in a gay humor at the success of the entertainment, despite the non-committal attitude of this censor, and pleased at the appositeness of her quotation.  Her figure had filled out since her marriage.  She was almost plump and she wore a single short fat curl pendent behind her ear.

A few months subsequent to this dinner party Flossy announced one day that Mr. Silas S. Parsons, whom Selma had seen with the Williamses at the theatre nearly three years before, had come to live in New York with his wife and daughter.  Flossy referred to him eagerly as one of her husband’s most valuable customers, a shrewd, sensible, Western business man, who had made money in patent machinery and was superbly rich.  He had gone temporarily to a hotel, but he was intending to build a large house on Fifth Avenue near the park.  Selma heard this announcement with keen interest, asking herself at once why Wilbur should not be the architect.  Why not, indeed?  She promptly reasoned that here was her chance to aid her husband; that he, if left to his own devices, would do nothing to attract the magnate’s attention, and that it behooved her, as an American wife and a wide-awake, modern woman, to let Mr. Parsons know his qualifications, and to prepossess him in Wilbur’s favor by her own attractions.  The idea appealed to her exceedingly.  She had been hoping that some opportunity to take an active part in the furtherance of Wilbur’s career would present itself, for she felt instinctively that with her co-operation he would make more rapid progress.  Here was exactly the occasion longed for.  She saw in her mind’s eye Mr. Parsons’s completed mansion, stately and beautiful, the admired precursor of a host of important edifices—­a revolutionizing monument in contemporary architecture.  Wilbur would become the fashion, and his professional success be assured, thanks to the prompt ability of his wife to take advantage of circumstances.  So she would prove herself a veritable helpmate, and the bond of marital sympathy would be strengthened and refreshed.