was there—­and you never thought a word about your promise to me” (this came with a little pout, her chin uplifted, her lips quite near his face), “and we didn’t have half men enough and our cotillion was all spoiled.  I don’t care—­we had a lovely time, even if you two men did behave disgracefully.  No—­I don’t want to listen to a thing.  I didn’t come down to see either of you. (She had watched them both from her window as they crossed the street.) “What I want to know, Jack, is, who is Miss Felicia Grayson?”

“Why, Mr. Grayson’s sister,” burst out Jack—­“the old gentleman who came to see me.”

“That old fellow!”

“Yes, that old fellow—­the most charming—­”

“Not that remnant!” interrupted Garry.

“No, Garry—­not that kind of a man at all, but a most delightful old gentleman by the name of Mr. Grayson,” and Jack’s eyes flashed.  “He told me his sister was coming to town.  What do you know about her, Corinne?” He was all excitement:  Peter was to send for him when his sister arrived.

“Nothing—­that’s why I ask you.  I’ve just got a note from her.  She says she knew mamma when she lied in Washington, and that her brother has fallen in love with you, and that she won’t have another happy moment—­or something like that—­if you and I don’t come to a tea she is giving to a Miss Ruth MacFarlane; and that I am to give her love to mamma, and bring anybody I please with me.”

“When?” asked Jack.  He could hardly restrain his joy.

“I think next Saturday—­yes, next Saturday,” consulting the letter in her hand.

“Where?  At Mr. Grayson’s rooms?” cried Jack.

“Yes, at her brother’s, she says.  Here, Jack—­you read it.  Some number in East Fifteenth Street—­queer place for people to live, isn’t it, Garry?—­people who want anybody to come to their teas.  I’ve got a dressmaker lives over there somewhere; she’s in Fifteenth Street, anyhow, for I always drive there.”

Jack devoured the letter.  This was what he had been hoping for.  He knew the old gentleman would keep his word!

“Well, of course you’ll go, Corinne?” he cried eagerly.

“Of course I’ll do nothing of the kind.  I think it’s a great piece of impudence.  I’ve never heard of her.  Because you had her brother upstairs, that’s no reason why—­But that’s just like these people.  You give them an inch and—­”

Jack’s cheeks flushed:  “But, Corinne!  She’s offered you a courtesy—­asked you to her house, and—­”

“I don’t care; I’m not going!  Would you, Garry?”

The son of the Collector hesitated for a moment.  He had his own ideas of getting on in the world.  They were not Jack’s—­his, he knew, would never succeed.  And they were not exactly Corinne’s—­ she was too particular.  The fence was evidently the best place for him.

“Would be rather a bore, wouldn’t it?” he replied. evasively, with a laugh.  “Lives up under the roof, I guess, wears a dyed wig, got Cousin Mary Ann’s daguerreotype on the mantle, and tells you how Uncle Ephraim—­”