"Lynn, we never see you, now," declared Joan Cadding, one of her friends. "What's the reason?"
"Old age, laziness and lots to do. At twenty-eight one can't be always gadding. Besides, a teacher must keep early hours."
"Oh, aged one, it is not so many years since a certain teacher was out every night in the week until one or two o'clock and absolutely refused even to lie down for half an hour when she left school at three. Mrs. Thayer used to say to mother, 'Really, Lynn must have the constitution of a horse; she comes home from school, skates for an hour, rushes into calling costume and drops into a dozen things before dinner: then, as soon as that is over, prepares for a dance or a tobogganing party.'"
"As you say, I was a few years younger, Joan."
"But why have you given everything up so? You can't complain of being shelved. Why, at the only dance where I've met you this winter your card was filled to overflowing before you had been in the room five minutes. You certainly can't worry about lack of attention."
"No, I have no beauty to fade and no youthful fascinations to take wing, so the people who liked me ten years ago are just as apt to like me, now."
"Then why do you slip out of things so? Even Del says she never sees you."
"Del means that I don't live here as I used to. I see her three or four times a week: any one but Del would be sick of me. But, seriously, girls, this idea of combining public school teacher and society girl isn't the best in the world. As far as I know, I am the only woman who has ever done it successfully for years and I'm getting tired of it. And that reminds me! Do you want to hear a good story? I went to a man-tea at Mrs. Dean-Everill's the other day—you see I'm not altogether a hermit yet—and I met a Mrs. Howden there—a very common woman with money. No one else wanted to talk to her and she seemed a good-natured soul and anxious to be affable, so I sacrificed myself as usual. She simply beamed on me—till, in the course of conversation, it transpired that I taught from nine to three five days out of the seven. Then she froze: suddenly and completely did she freeze: and took the earliest opportunity of sidling away from my contaminating presence. A little later on I was talking to some of the other people when Dick Ashe, who has just returned from Europe, you know, rushed up to me and said in his usual boisterous way, 'Oh, Miss Thayer, you should see the lovely pin that your cousin, Lord Haviland, has entrusted to me for you.' I caught sight of the woman's face; she looked like a devotee who had unwittingly slapped a seraph. I felt so sorry for her that I hastened to murmur, 'Oh, Harry's only my third cousin, you know!' but even that didn't seem to wipe the tortured look from her fat face. Think what it must be to a social climber to have snubbed an earl's third cousin."
In the burst of laughter and talk which followed this, only Mrs. Hadwell noticed that Lynn had made a definite effort to turn the course of conversation from discussion of herself.
"Well," said Agatha Ladilaw in her flute-like voice, "I don't see what is amusing you all so. It couldn't have been very pleasant for Mrs. What's-her-name to think that she had been rude to an earl's third cousin: and, on the other hand, if Lynn were an ordinary teacher you couldn't expect her to be treated in the same way."