"Look at Mary Byrd." Mary Byrd tossed her bright head as gaily as if a compliment had been intended.

"Oh, you needn't think I like to dress this way," she retorted, "or that I don't sometimes get tired of keeping up with things.

Why, there are hours and hours when I simply feel as if I should drop." "Well, as long as you look like that you needn't hope for a change," remarked Stephen admiringly.

Then, turning his gaze away from her too obvious brightness, he looked into the tranquil depths of Margaret's blue eyes, and thought how much more restful the old-fashioned type of woman must have been.

Men didn't need to bestir themselves and sharpen their wits with women like that; they were accepted, with their inherent virtues or vices, as philosophically as one accepted the seasons.
It was a dull supper, he thought, because his mind was distracted; but a little later, when they had returned to the drawing-room, and the family had drifted away in separate directions--Mary Byrd and Peyton to a dance, his father to his library, and his mother and the three other girls to a game of bridge in the next room, he received an amazing revelation of Margaret's point of view.