Her extreme finish, her unself-conscious confidence and intrepidity, her unassumed lightness of temper were not often found in one so young and apparently virginal.

She dismissed as unbelievable the story that this girl had been brought up in the country in an atmosphere of early Victorianism.

She had obviously just come from one of those elaborate finishing schools in which the daughters of rich people are turned into hothouse plants by sycophants and parasites and sent out into the world the most perfect specimens of superautocracy, to patronize their parents, scoff at discipline, ignore duty and demand the sort of luxury that brought Rome to its fall.

With admiration and amusement she watched her say good-by to one woman after another as the various tables broke up.

It really gave her quite a moment to see the way in which Joan gave as careless and unawed a hand to Mrs.Alan Hosack and Mrs.Cooper Jekyll as to the Countess Palotta, who had nothing but pride to rattle in her little bag; and when finally she too drove away, it was with the uneasy sense of dissatisfaction that goes with the dramatic critic from a production in which he has honestly to confess that there is something new--and arresting.
Alice Palgrave stayed behind.