“Lily,” Honora began again, with exemplary patience, when people invite themselves to one’s house, it’s a little difficult to refuse them hospitality, isn’t it?”

“Invite themselves?”

“Yes,” replied Honora.  “If I weren’t—­fond of you, too, I shouldn’t make this explanation.  I was tired.  I never felt less like entertaining strangers.  They wanted to play bridge, there wasn’t a quiet spot in the Club where they could go.  They knew I was on my way home, and they suggested my house.  That is how it happened.”

Mrs. Dallam was silent a moment.

“May I have one of Howard’s cigarettes?” she asked, and added, after this modest wish had been supplied, that’s just like them.  They’re willing to make use of anybody.”

“I meant,” said Honora, “to have gone to your house this morning and to have explained how it happened.”

Another brief silence, broken by Lily Dallam.

“Did you notice the skirt of that suit Abby Kame had on?”, she asked.  “I’m sure she paid a fabulous price for it in Paris, and it’s exactly like one I ordered on Tuesday.”

The details of the rest of this conversation may be omitted.  That Honora was forgiven, and Mrs. Dallam’s spirits restored may be inferred from her final remark.

“My dear, what do you think of Sid and Howard making twenty thousand dollars apiece in Sassafras Copper?  Isn’t it too lovely!  I’m having a little architect make me plans for a conservatory.  You know I’ve always been dying for one—­I don’t see how I’ve lived all these years without it.”

Honora, after her friend had gone, sat down in one of the wicker chairs on the porch.  She had a very vague idea as to how much twenty thousand dollars was, but she reflected that while they had lived in Rivington Howard must have made many similar sums, of which she was unaware.  Gradually she began to realize, however, that her resentment of the lack of confidence of her husband was by no means the only cause of the feeling that took possession of and overwhelmed her.  Something like it she had experienced before:  to-day her thoughts seemed to run through her in pulsations, like waves of heat, and she wondered that she could have controlled herself while listening to Lily Dallam.

Mrs. Dallam’s reproaches presented themselves to Honora in new aspects.  She began to feel now, with an intensity that frightened her, distaste and rebellion.  It was intolerable that she should be called to account for the people she chose to have in her house, that any sort of pressure should be brought to bear on her to confine her friends to Quicksands.  Treason, heresy, disloyalty to the cult of that community—­in reality these, and not a breach of engagement, were the things of which she had been accused.  She saw now.  She would not be tied to Quicksands—­she would not, she would not, she would not!  She owed it no allegiance.  Her very soul rebelled at the thought, and cried out that she was made for something better, something higher than the life she had been leading.  She would permit no one forcibly to restrict her horizon.