"I wonder," said Gertrude, as the Lorimers dressed for Frank's party, "if there will be a lot of gorgeous people this afternoon?" And she looked ruefully at the patch on her boot, with a humiliating reminiscence of Darrell's watchful eye.
"I don't expect so," answered Phyllis, whose pretty feet were appropriately shod. "You know what dowdy people one meets at the Oakleys. Oh, of course they know others, but they don't turn up, somehow."
"Then there will be Mr. Jermyn's people," said Lucy, inspecting her gloves with a frown.
"A lot of pretty, well-dressed girls, no doubt," answered Phyllis; "I expect that well-beloved youth has a wife in every port, or at least a young woman in every suburb."
"Apropos," said Gertrude, "I wonder if the Devonshires will be there. We never seem to see Conny in these days."
"Isn't it rather a strain on friendship," answered Phyllis, shrewdly, "when two sets of our friends become acquainted, and seem to prefer one another to us, the old and tried and trusty friend of each?"
"What horrid things you say sometimes, Phyllis," objected Lucy, as the three sisters trooped downstairs.
Fanny was not with them; she was spending the day with some relations of her mother's.
A curious, dreamlike sensation stole over Gertrude at finding herself once again in a roomful of people; and as an old war-horse is said to become excited at the sound of battle, so she felt the social instincts rise strongly within her as the familiar, forgotten pageant of nods and becks and wreathed smiles burst anew upon her.