The speaker was not perfectly beautiful. But she was wise and therefore a virgin.
"No!" said Grace. "But really, I don't want to have anything to do with it."
"If Hendrik was my Hendrik, I'd be It," said the wise virgin, determinedly, "or he'd know it!"
"He told me," Grace spoke modestly, "that only perfectly beautiful girls would be chosen. And so of course that lets me out!"
"Oh-h-h-h!" came in chorus. There ensued much whispering. Grace flushed. No woman likes to be accused of mendacity monosyllabically. It made her dislike H. R. more than ever.
"Does your father," asked the wise one, "still oppose—"
"He does," answered Grace. Then she added, "Of course."
"I think your father—" And the wise one bit her lips. You would have thought she was snipping off thread with her teeth. A well-bred person must do this oftener than a seamstress—to keep herself from telling the truth.
"My father," tactfully observed Marion Molyneux, "could oppose until the cows came home."
"Mamma is on the commission and I'm not eligible, so I am not after his vote," said Ethel Vandergilt. "But I'd love to meet him, Grace. Is he all they say he is?"