"Oh, Miss Nevers's firm has charge of cataloguing my armour and jades. They're at it still. That's how I first met her—in a business way. And when I found her to be a friend of Aunt Hannah's, I asked them both up here as my guests."
"You always had an eye for beauty," said Cairns. "What do you suppose Mrs. Hammerton's game is?"
"Why, to make Miss Nevers known where she really ought to belong," replied Desboro frankly.
"How high does she plan to climb?" asked Barkley. "Above the vegetating line?"
"Probably not as far as the line of perpetual stupidity," said Desboro. "Miss Nevers appears to be a very busy, and very intelligent, and self-sufficient young lady, and I imagine she would have neither time nor inclination to decorate any of the restless, gilt-encrusted sets."
Van Alstyne said: "She's got the goods to deliver almost anywhere Mrs. Hammerton chooses—F. O. B. what?"
"She's some dream," admitted Ledyard as they all moved toward the library.
There were a lot of gay young girls there in skating costumes; Ledyard's sister Marie, with her large figure and pretty but slightly stupid face; Helsa Steyr, blonde, athletic, and red-haired; Athalie Vannis, with her handsome, dark face, so often shadowed by discontent; Barkley's animated little wife, Elizabeth, grey-eyed and freckled and brimming with mischief of the schoolboy quality; the stately Katharine Frere; Aunt Hannah; and Jacqueline.
All except the latter two had been doing something to cocktails of various species; Jacqueline took nothing; Aunt Hannah, Scotch whiskey with relish.
"It's about the last of the skating," said Desboro, "so we'd better take what we can get as soon as luncheon is over. Pick your partners and don't squabble. Me for Mrs. Hammerton!" and he led her out.