"Mrs. Danielson!"
"Elise Thayer!"
"My dear Mrs. Norman!"
Mrs. Norman was the first to speak. She was the only one who had had the opportunity to summon her story to her tongue's end. She began glibly and with nervous haste:
"My dears, I positively had to come! Reggie would have it so. He and Mr. Christy are mixed up in some financial operations, and he said it was policy: I'm perfectly mortified to be here!"
Nevertheless, she glanced about her in most interested scrutiny.
"It was a pure and simple case of money with me," announced Ethel Danielson, with suave frankness. "My furs are not paid for, and the bills for my Palm Beach gowns are pouring in. These trades people are so loathsomely prompt with their bills and so maddeningly slow every other way! I wish they would reverse it. So I came to see if I could not get something out of it—that's between us. If I draw any decent partners I ought to, for I generally have good luck."
"Now, Elise, you see we were each forced into coming," said Mrs. Norman accusingly, "for goodness sake, why did you come?"
"Well, I considered it carefully. The Christys are bound to get in—if not now, later! They have come to stay, and they will hammer away, with their millions behind them, until they're in. What's the use of standing out against it? They will only snub me by and by," returned Elise Thayer with defiant truthfulness.