The seeds of change--subtle, metaphysical--are rooted deeply.

From the first mention of the dance by Mrs.Cowperwood and Anna, Aileen had been conscious of a desire toward a more effective presentation of herself than as yet, for all her father's money, she had been able to achieve.
The company which she was to encounter, as she well knew, was to be so much more impressive, distinguished than anything she had heretofore known socially.

Then, too, Cowperwood appeared as something more definite in her mind than he had been before, and to save herself she could not get him out of her consciousness.
A vision of him had come to her but an hour before as she was dressing.
In a way she had dressed for him.

She was never forgetful of the times he had looked at her in an interested way.

He had commented on her hands once.