It seems to her that the social air is growing a little too sultry.

"Come, Tita; it will do you good." "Oh, I should love it!" says Tita, starting to her feet.
"Dear Margaret, you forget that, though Tita has been here for a week, this is the very first quiet moment I have had with her! Do not tempt her from me!" "Certainly not, Tessie, if you wish to have her with you," says Margaret, reseating herself.
Now, more than ever, she feels there is danger in the air.
"Don't let me keep _you,"_ says Lady Rylton, with deliberation.

"Go, dear Margaret, and get some of the sweet evening air--it may be of use to your complexion; it is the tiniest bit yellow of late.

And when one is twenty-five--it _is_ twenty-five ?" She knows Margaret's truthful nature.
"Thirty," says Margaret, who knows her, too, to the very ground.
"Ah, impossible!" says Lady Rylton sweetly.

"Twenty-five, Margaret--not a day more! But, still, your complexion---- There, go away and refresh it; and come back when I have had my little chat with my dearest Tita." Margaret casts a swift glance at the girl sitting there, apparently quite unconscious of the coming storm, and with her hands twined behind her head.