Behind her the three women at the tea-table gathered up their furs in silence. Cornelia Blair looked relieved and prepared to go on to dinner at another club, Mrs. Bullen avoided Mrs. Van Vechten's eye. In her rosy face faint lines had traced themselves, as if vaguely some new perceptiveness troubled her. She looked at her wristwatch and rose from the table hastily.
"I must run along," she said. "I like to get home before John does. You going my way, Sally?"
Mrs. Van Vechten shook her head absently. There was a frown between her dark brows; but as she stood fastening her furs her eyes went to the west window, with an expression in them that was almost wistful. For an instant she looked as if she were going over to the window beside Mary Trask; then she gathered up her gloves and muff and went out without a word.
Mary Trask was unaware of her going. She had forgotten the room behind her and her friends at the tea-table, as well as the other women drifting in from the adjoining room. She was contemplating, with her little, absent-minded smile, her husband's name on the builder's sign halfway up the unfinished sky-scraper opposite.
"Good work, old Rob," she murmured. Then her hand went up in a quaint gesture that was like a salute. "To all good jobs and the men behind them!" she added.
FOOTNOTES:
[11] Copyright, 1920, by Charles Scribner's Sons.
Copyright, 1921, by Grace Sartwell Mason.