Claire rose at this. Her repose was gone; her piquant excitability had seemed abruptly to return. She did not appear in the least angry. Mrs. Diggs would have liked it better if she had shown a wrathful sign or two.
"Don't let us talk of those grim matters, please," she said. She came very close to her companion, and then, taking both the latter's hands, sank down on her knees. Her face was lit with a charming yet restless cheerfulness. "Dear friend, you spoke a minute ago of my triumphs. Do you know, I've never secured just what I wanted until to-day? You thought I had, but you were wrong. Shall I tell you why?" Mrs. Diggs was inwardly thinking, as one ill-favored but generous woman will sometimes think of another, how purely enchanting was her manner, and how richly she deserved to win the social distinction she had attained.
"I suppose you mean, Claire, that Hollister to-day completed the last thousand of his fourth or fifth million, eh?"
"Oh, not at all. I don't mean anything of the sort. I don't know anything about Herbert's affairs, nowadays. He keeps them all to himself."
"Well, then, what is it?"
"You'll laugh when you hear. You recollect the great ladies' luncheon that I am to give next Friday?"
"Of course I do. I'm going to honor it."
"And so are two others. Mrs. Van Horn and Mrs. Ridgeway Lee. They have never honored anything of mine until now. Poor Mrs. Arcularius yielded, and bowed before me, long ago. My old school-enemy, Ada Gerrard, more freckled, more arrogant, more stupid than ever, is one of my most willing allies. I had conquered them all, but I could not conquer those two women. They stood aloof, and their standing aloof was a perpetual distress."
"Claire, Claire," exclaimed Mrs. Diggs, "you make me wonder at you! What was the hostility of these two women, whether open or repressed? You had all the others to pay you court. Why should you have cared? They saw your success. They are powerful, but their power could not keep you from asserting and maintaining yours. I repeat, why should you care?"
"I did care. But it is all over now." She rose to her feet, with a full laugh, as she said these words. "They are coming to my luncheon. They have both accepted. They have acknowledged me. I have forced them to do so."