"You know so many nice boys, dear," she resumed after a minute, "that I think you might be content to let actors alone." "But boys are so stupid, mother." Fanny's tone was withering in its disdain.

"They are wrapped up in sports, and I despise sports." "Then you oughtn't to tease them as you do.

You're too young to have fancies." "I am sixteen." "Well, that is much too young for anything of that sort.

I like you to have boy friends, but I don't like you to be foolish.

What has become of that attractive boy, Carlie's brother?
He doesn't come here any more, and I'm afraid you've hurt his feelings." "Oh, mother," hummed Fanny to the music of the lame duck as she practised before the mirror, "how can you really hurt a man ?" The next morning when Gabriella, in a Parisian gown of black taffeta and one of the absurdly small hats of the autumn, started for Dinard's, she found herself thinking, not of Fanny's flirtation, but of her long talk with O'Hara.