If you don't help me to meet her conventionally I'll manage somehow, but I should hate to practice any subterfuges on the woman I intend to make my wife." For a moment he had the sensation of being pinned to the wall by that narrow concentrated gaze.

Then Mrs.Thornton swung on her heel.

"I'll do it," she said.
She walked across the room with the supple grace her slender figure had never lost and sat down beside the older woman.

In a moment the astonished dowagers who had "suffered from her fiendish temper all evening," saw her talking with spontaneous graciousness to both the strangers.

Madame Delano was at first more distant and reserved than Mrs.
Thornton had ever been, manifestly betraying all the suspicion and unsocial instincts of her class; but she thawed, and the two women chatted, while once more the girl's eyes wandered to the dancers.
When Mrs.Thornton had tormented Ruyler for quite fifteen minutes she beckoned to him imperiously.