"How about my getting interested in some one?" Stephanie inquired.
"On second thought, it is not necessary—and it is better that you shouldn't. You can handle Pendleton much more easily if your affections are not engaged—except in a rational way."
"You might explain what you would call a 'rational way'!"
"I can't be specific!" Gladys laughed; "rationality depends on the circumstances of every case—and the individual view."
"Which is a trifle difficult to analyze," Stephanie remarked.
"Don't you wish to have Montague assigned to you?" the other demanded. "I'll give him to Dorothy, if you don't—she will be content."
"Won't you have some trouble in giving Montague to anybody—unless he's entirely willing to be given?" Stephanie smiled. "He isn't one to stay put, I fancy—whose place is this?" she ended, indicating a garish country-house, some little distance back from the road. "It is new, isn't it?"
"As new as the people who own it," Gladys answered. "The Woodsides live there. They belong to the Pushers Clique—and they are trying to pry their way through the outer portals. I don't like them."
"So I should infer," said Stephanie. "Who are their friends?"
"They haven't any—yet. They're trying to get in—nobody has any friends until they're in, my dear—and not many after they're in. They're pirates until the second generation."