Her vivid head, relieved against the dull tints of the crowd, made her more conspicuous than in a ball-room, and under her dark hat and veil she regained the girlish smoothness, the purity of tint, that she was beginning to lose after eleven years of late hours and indefatigable dancing.

Was it really eleven years, Selden found himself wondering, and had she indeed reached the nine-and-twentieth birthday with which her rivals credited her?
"What luck!" she repeated.

"How nice of you to come to my rescue!" He responded joyfully that to do so was his mission in life, and asked what form the rescue was to take.
"Oh, almost any--even to sitting on a bench and talking to me.

One sits out a cotillion--why not sit out a train?
It isn't a bit hotter here than in Mrs.Van Osburgh's conservatory--and some of the women are not a bit uglier." She broke off, laughing, to explain that she had come up to town from Tuxedo, on her way to the Gus Trenors' at Bellomont, and had missed the three-fifteen train to Rhinebeck.

"And there isn't another till half-past five." She consulted the little jewelled watch among her laces.