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Black Oxen

<h3> XXVI </h3> Madame Zattiany stood before the long old-fashioned pier glass in her bedroom, a large cheerful room recently done over in white chintz sprayed with violets. The bright winter sun streamed in on a scene of confusion. Gowns were thrown over every chair and hats covered the bed. They all had the air of being tossed aside impatiently, as indeed they had been, and the maid with a last comprehensive look at her mistress began to gather them up and carry them to the large wardrobes in the dressing-room. Mary regarded herself critically. She had wished (not without malice!) to emphasize her youthful appearance, but not at the expense of dignity, and she felt that she had achieved the subtle combination in the frock of soft black velvet cut with long, sweeping lines and of an excessive simplicity; and a black velvet hat of medium size with a drooping brim that almost covered one eye. The long white gloves disappeared into her sleeves somewhere above the elbow and she wore a single string of pearls. She looked very Parisian, very elegant, as Mrs. Oglethorpe would have expressed it, and very assured. In spite of the mocking gleam in the one visible eye her face was serene and proud. She had felt some trepidation on Tuesday when she had sought out Mrs. Oglethorpe and made her explanations, but she felt none whatever at the prospect of meeting these other twelve old friends. Whether they approved or resented, were indulgent or elevated their respectable noses and intimated, "You are no longer one of us," was a matter of profound indifference to Mary Zattiany. She would have avoided them all if it had been possible, but since she had deliberately permitted her hand to be forced she would take the situation humorously and amuse herself with whatever drama it might afford. Elinor Goodrich. Mabel Lawrence. Polly Vane. Isabel Ruyler. Ellen de Lacey. Louise Prevost. She had been so intimate with all of them, not only in the schoolroom but when they were all in Society together. Now only her somewhat cynical sense of anticipation mitigated utter boredom at the thought of meeting them again. Of the other six she had still vaguer memories, although she recalled having heard that the beauty of her own last season, Lily Armstrong, had married one of the Tracys. She also was to be at the luncheon. What on earth was she to talk to them about at the table? She could hardly tell them the story they expected before the servants. That would be for the later hour in the drawing-room—or would it be in that absurd old room of Jane's upstairs? She recalled Elinor Tracy (Goodrich) and her enthusiastic admiration, which she had accepted as a matter-of-course, and given little beyond amiable tolerance in return. As she had told Clavering, she was not a woman's woman. She hoped Nelly had outgrown "gush." For some ten years after her marriage she had met her from time to time abroad, but she had not seen her for so long that she doubted if she would recognize her if they passed on the street. The only one of her old friends for whom she retained either interest or affection was Jane Oglethorpe, who, ten years older than herself, with a commanding personality unfolding rapidly at the dawn of their intimacy, had attracted deeply but subtly her own untried force of character and ruthless will. Embarrassment over, she had enjoyed their long hour together, and was glad to renew the intimacy, to find that her old friend's warm affection had lost nothing with the years. And she had found her more interesting than in her youth. She sighed a little as she looked back on her long hours of almost unbroken solitude in this old house. She had been comparatively happy at first—a blessed interval of rest and peace in this marvellously wealthy and prosperous city where the poor were kept out of sight, at least, where all the men were whole and where one never saw a gaunt woman's appealing eyes, or emaciated ragged children. Those untroubled hours had fled for ever and astonishment, impotent fury, and dire mental conflict had followed, but nevertheless she had dreamed—dreamed—and been glad of her freedom from social and all other duties. Now, probably these women and many more would swarm here. Her mouth twisted as her maid helped her into the soft gray coat trimmed with blue fox. Ordeal! That would come on Saturday night. No wonder she was merely amused and totally indifferent today! When she arrived at the house in Gramercy Park, purposely late, to give her entrance the effect Mrs. Oglethorpe had commanded, she heard an excited buzz of voices in the drawing-room as she was being relieved of her wrap. As she entered it ceased abruptly and she heard several hardly perceptible gasps. But the pause, before they all crowded about her, was too brief to be noticeable, and they shook her hand heartily or kissed her warmly. If their eyes were perhaps too studiously expressionless, their words and manner might have been those of old friends welcoming back one who had been long absent and nothing more. Conflicting emotions, born of undying femininity, were not evident for the moment. Mrs. Goodrich cried out at once how wonderfully well she looked, Mrs. Lawrence asked if she had stopped in Paris for her clothes, and Mrs. Vane if she found New York much changed. Nothing could have gone off better. Mrs. Oglethorpe, in old-pile black velvet as usual, with a front and high-boned collar of yellow rose-point lace, stood in the background watching the comedy with a frank sardonic grin. If her guests had been faithless to the traditions in which they had been bred, she would have felt angry and ashamed, but the automatic manner in which they rose to the occasion and took the blow standing (Mrs. Oglethorpe often indulged in the vernacular of her son, her Janet, and her Lee) made her rock with silent mirth. She knew exactly how they felt! They were a fine-looking set of women and handsomely dressed, but they indisputably belonged to the old régime, and even Mrs. Tracy, the youngest of them, had something of what Mary Zattiany called that built-up look. They were fashionable but not smart. They carried themselves with a certain conscious rigidity and aloofness which even their daughters had abandoned and was a source of disrespectful amusement to their iniquitous granddaughters. Although Mrs. Goodrich, Mrs. Lawrence and Mrs. Tracy were more up to date in their general appearance, wearing slightly larger hats and fewer feathers, with narrow dog collars instead of whaleboned net, they were as disdainful as the others of every art that aims to preserve something of the effect of youth; although they were spickingly groomed. They accepted life as it was, and they had accepted it at every successive stage, serene in the knowledge that in this as in other things they were above the necessity of compromise and subterfuge. They were the fixed quantities in a world of shifting values. In age they ranged from fifty-six to sixty-two, with the exception of Mrs. Tracy, who was a mere fifty-two. A few were stout, the others bony and gaunt. Their hair was white or gray. Only Mrs. Tracy, with her fresh complexion and soft brown hair, her plump little figure encased in modern corsets, had got on the blind side of nature, as Mrs. Oglethorpe had told Mary. The others were frankly elderly women, but of great dignity and distinction, some charm, and considerable honesty and simplicity. And their loyalty never failed them. The luncheon was by no means easy and informal. Mary, by racking her memory, recalled the first names of most of them and never in all her varied life had she been more sweetly amiable, made so determined an effort to please. She might not care what they thought of her, but she was sorry for them, they had behaved very decently, and for Jane Oglethorpe's sake alone the occasion must be a success. She was ably seconded by Mrs. Goodrich, who stared at her in wide-eyed admiration and rattled off the gossip of New York, and by Mrs. Tracy, who had an insatiable interest in diplomatic society. When she had satisfied the latter's curiosity she led the conversation by a straight path to the sufferings of the children of Austria and begged them to join her in forming a relief committee. They received this philanthropic suggestion with no apparent fervor, but it served to relieve the stiffness and tension until they retired to the drawing-room for coffee. They stood about for a few moments, Mary looking up at the portrait of Jane Oglethorpe in her flaming youth. But the hostess ordered them all to sit down and exclaimed peremptorily: "Now, Mary, tell them all about it or I'll have a lot of fainting hysterical women on my hands. We're still human if we are old and ugly. Go to it, as Janet would say. I believe you have met that estimable exponent of the later New York manner. You are no more extraordinary yourself than some of the changes here at home, but you're more picturesque, and that's harder to swallow. Put them out of their misery." The ladies smiled or frowned, according to what humor the Almighty, niggardly in his bestowal of humor, had allotted them. At all events they were used to "Jane." Mrs. Goodrich, who had led Mary to a sofa and seated herself beside her, took her hand and pressed it affectionately, as if she were encouraging her on the way to the operating room. "Yes, tell us the story, darling. It is all too wonderful!" "Do you really mean that you have never heard of this treatment?" asked Madame Zattiany, who knew quite well that they had not. "Few things are better known in Europe." "We have never heard of it," said Mrs. Vane austerely. "We were totally unprepared." Madame Zattiany shrugged her graceful shoulders. "I have been told that America never takes up anything new in science until it has become stale in Europe. But women as well as men have been flocking to Vienna. Russian princesses have pledged their jewels——" "How romantic!" exclaimed Mrs. Goodrich, who was one of those women in whom a certain spurious sense of romance increases with age. But Mrs. Vane mumbled something less complimentary. She had never been romantic in her life; and she was beginning to feel the strain. "Well," said Madame Zattiany, "I suppose I must begin at the beginning. I dislike holding forth, but if you will have it——" "Don't leave out a word!" exclaimed Mrs. Tracy. "We want every detail. You've made us feel both as young as yourself and as old as Methuselah." Madame Zattiany smiled amiably at the one woman in the room who had lingered in the pleasant spaces of middle age. "Very well. I'll be as little technical as possible.… As you know, I ran a hospital in Buda Pesth during the war. After the revolution broke out I was forced to leave in secret to escape being murdered. I was on Bela Kun's list——" There was a sympathetic rustle in the group. This at least they could grasp on the wing. Mrs. de Lacey interrupted to beg for exciting details, but Mrs. Goodrich and Mrs. Tracy cried simultaneously: "No! No! Go on—please!" "Quite right," said Mrs. Oglethorpe, who was prepared to enjoy herself. "We can have that later." "I naturally went to Vienna, not only because I had some money invested there, but because I could live in the Zattiany Palace. The old house was difficult to keep warm, and as I was too tired and nervous to struggle with any new problems I went at a friend's suggestion into a sanitarium. "The doctor in charge soon began to pay me something more than perfunctory visits when he found that intelligent conversation after my long dearth did me more good than harm. Finally he told me of a method of treatment that might restore my youth, and begged me to undertake it——" "Ah!" There were sharp indrawn breaths. Mrs. Vane drew herself up—figuratively, for she could hardly be more perpendicular, with her unyielding spine, her long neck encased in whaleboned net and her lofty head topped off with feathers. A look of hostility dawned in several pairs of eyes, while frank distaste overspread Mrs. Ruyler's mahogany visage. Madame Zattiany went on unperturbed. "It may relieve your minds to hear that I was at first as indifferent as all of you no doubt would have been. The war—and many other things—had made me profoundly tired of life—something of course that I do not expect you to understand. And now that the war was over and my usefulness at an end, I had nothing to look forward to but the alleviation of poverty by means of my wealth when it was restored, and this could be done by trustees. Life had seemed to me to consist mainly of repetitions. I had run the gamut. But I began to be interested, at first by the fact that science might be able to accomplish a miracle where centuries of woman's wit had failed——" "Wit?" snorted Mrs. Vane. "Ignoble vanity." "Well, call it that if you like, but the desire to be young again or to achieve its simulacrum, in both men and women, has something of the dignity which the centuries give to all antiques. However, at the time, you will also be glad to know, I was far more interested in the prospect of reënergizing my worn out mind and body. I was so mortally tired! And if I had to live on, and no doubt with still much work to do in distracted Europe——" "But what did they do to you?" cried Mrs. Tracy. "I'd have done it in your place—yes, I would!" she said defiantly as she met the august disgusted eye of Mrs. Vane. "I think Countess Zattiany was quite right. What is science for, anyhow?" "Go on! Go on!" murmured Mrs. Goodrich. She was too fat and comfortable to have any desire to return to youth with its tiresome activities, but all her old romantic affection for Mary Ogden had revived and she was even more interested than curious. "I am trying to! Well, I must tell you that the explanation of my condition, as of others of my age, was that the endocrines——" "The what?" The demand was simultaneous. "The ductless glands." "Oh," said Mrs. Prevost vaguely, "I've seen something——" "It is all Greek to me," said Mrs. Vane, who felt that unreasoning resentment common to the minor-informed for the major-informed. "You promised to avoid technical terms." Madame Zattiany explained in the simplest language she could command the meaning and the function of the ductless glands. The more intelligent among them looked gratified, for the painless achievement of fresh knowledge is a pleasant thing. Madame Zattiany went on patiently: "These glands in my case had undergone a natural process of exhaustion. In women the slower functioning of the endocrines is coincident with the climacteric, as they have been dependent for stimulation upon certain ovarian cells. The idea involved is that the stimulation of these exhausted cells would cause the other glands to function once more at full strength and a certain rejuvenation ensue as a matter of course; unless, of course, they had withered beyond the power of science. I was a promising subject, for examination proved that my organs were healthy, my arteries soft; and I was not yet sixty. Only experimentation could reveal whether or not there was still any life left in the cells, although I responded favorably to the preliminary tests. The upshot was that I consented to the treatment——" "Yes? Yes?" Every woman in the room now sat forward, no longer old friends or rivals, affectionate or resentful, nor the victims of convention solidified into sharp black and white by the years. They were composite female. "It consisted of the concentration of powerful Röntgen—what you call X-Rays—on that portion of the body covering the ovaries——" "How horrible!" "Did you feel as if you were being electrocuted?" "Are you terribly scarred?" "Not at all. I felt nothing whatever, and there was nothing to cause scars——" "But I thought that the X-Rays——" "Oh, do be quiet, Louisa," exclaimed Mrs. Tracy impatiently. "Please go on, Countess Zattiany." "As I said, the application was painless, and if no benefit results, neither will any harm be done when the Rays are administered by a conscientious expert. My final consent, as I told you, was due to the desire to regain my old will power and vitality. I was extremely skeptical about any effect on my personal appearance. During the first month I felt so heavy and dull that, in spite of assurances that these were favorable symptoms, I was secretly convinced that I had forfeited what little mental health I had retained; but was consoled by the fact that I slept all night and a part of the day: I had suffered from insomnia since my duties at the hospital had ended——" "But surely you must have been nervous and terrified?" All of these women had seen and suffered illness, but all from time-honored visitations, even if under new and technical names, and they had suffered in common with millions of others, which, if it offended their sense of exclusiveness, at least held the safeguard of normalcy. They felt a chill of terror, in some cases of revulsion, as Madame Zattiany went on to picture this abnormal renaissance going on in the body unseen and unfelt; in the body of one who had been cast in the common mould, subject to the common fate, and whom they had visioned—when they thought about her at all—as growing old with themselves; as any natural Christian woman would. It was not only mysterious and terrifying but subtly indecent. Mrs. Vane drew back from her eager poise. Almost it seemed to the amused Mrs. Oglethorpe that she withdrew her skirts. Drama was for the stage or the movies; at all events drama in private life, among the elect, was objective, external, and, however offensive, particularly when screamed in the divorce court, it was, at least, like the old diseases, remarkably normal. But an interior drama; not to put too fine a point on it, a drama of one's insides, and especially one that dealt with the raising from the dead of that section which refined women ceased to discuss after they had got rid of it—it was positively ghoulish. Drama of any sort in this respectable old drawing-room, which might have been photographed as the sarcophagus of all the Respectabilities, was extremely offensive. And what a drama! Never had these old walls listened to such a tale. Mrs. Vane and others like her had long since outgrown the prudery of their mothers, who had alluded in the most distant manner to the most decent of their internal organs, and called a leg a limb; but the commonplace was their rock, and they had a sense of sinking foundations. Madame Zattiany, who knew exactly what was passing in their minds, continued placidly: "Almost suddenly at the end of the fourth or fifth week, it seemed to me that an actual physical weight that had depressed my brain lifted, and I experienced a decided activity of mind and body, foreign to both for many years. Nevertheless, the complete reënergizing of both was very slow, the rejuvenation of appearance slower still. Worn-out cells do not expand rapidly. The mental change was pronounced long before the physical, except that I rarely felt fatigue, although I spent many hours a day at the relief stations." She paused and let her cool ironic glance wander over the intent faces before her. "Not only," she went on with a slow emphasis, which made them prick up their ears, "was the renewed power manifest in mental activity, in concentration, in memory, but that distaste for new ideas, for reorientation, had entirely disappeared. People growing old are condemned for prejudice, smugness, hostility to progress, to the purposes and enthusiasms of youth; but this attitude is due to aging glands alone, all things being equal. They cannot dig up the sunken tracks from the ruts in their brain and lay them elsewhere; and they instinctively protect themselves by an affectation of calm and scornful superiority, of righteous conservatism, which deceives themselves; much as I had assumed—and learned to feel—an attitude of profound indifference to my vanished youth, and refused to attempt any transparent disguise with cosmetics." Intentness relaxed once more. Twelve pairs of eyes expressed at least half as many sentiments. Mrs. Vane gazed at Mary Ogden, whose insolence she had never forgotten, with indignant hostility; Mrs. Poole, who always dressed as if she had a tumor, but whose remnant of a once lovely complexion indicated perfect health, maintained her slight tolerant smile; its effect somewhat abridged by the fact that the small turban of bright blue feathers topping her large face had slipped to one side. Mrs. Goodrich looked startled and gazed deprecatingly at her friends. Mrs. Lawrence's eyes snapped, and Mrs. de Lacey looked thoughtful. Only Mrs. Tracy spoke. "Wonderful! I feel more like Methuselah than ever. But it certainly is a relief to know what is the matter with me. Do go on, Mary—I may call you Mary? I only came out the year you were married—and you cannot imagine what a satisfaction it is to know that I am younger than you—were once. I've never done any of those things one reads about to keep looking young except cold cream my face at night, but I've often felt as if I'd like to——" "Do stop babbling, Lily Tracy!" exclaimed Mrs. Vane, who, however disgusted, was quite as curious as the others to hear the rest of the tale. And Mrs. Goodrich said softly: "Yes, go on, Mary, darling. I am sure the most thrilling part is yet to come. You see how interested your old friends all are." Madame Zattiany moved her cool insolent eyes to Mrs. Vane's set visage. "The time came when I knew that youth was returning to my face as well as to the hidden processes of my body; and I can assure you that it excited me far more than the renewed functioning of my brain. The treatment induces flesh, and as I had been excessively thin, my skin, as flesh accumulated, grew taut and lines disappeared. My eyes, which had long been dull, had regained something of their old brilliancy under the renaissance of brain and blood, and that was accentuated. My hair——" "Do you mean to say that it restores hair to its natural color?" demanded Mrs. Tracy, who had been plucking out bleached hairs for the past year. "That would——" "It does not. But my hair is the shade that never turns gray; and of course my teeth had always been kept in perfect order. I should never in any circumstances be a fat woman, but the active functioning of the glands gave me just enough flesh to complete the outer renovation. My complexion, after so many years of neglect, naturally needed scientific treatment of another sort, but that was still to be had in Vienna." "Ah!" The exclamation was sharp. Here, at least, was something they knew all about and systematically discountenanced. "Do you mean that you had your skin ripped off?" asked Mrs. Ruyler. "Certainly not. The skin was simply softened and reinvigorated by massage and the proper applications." They were too proud to ask for details, and Mrs. de Lacey, who was stout, glanced triumphantly at Mrs. Ruyler, who was stouter. "You mean, Mary, that one has to be thin for this treatment to be a success?" "That I cannot say. I really do not know what the treatment would do to a stout woman of middle or old age. The internal change would be the same, but, although additional flesh can be kept down by medicaments and diet, I doubt if there would be a complete restoration of the outlines of face and neck. A woman of sixty, with sagging flesh and distended skin, might once more look forty, if the treatment were successful, but hardly as young as I do. I was particularly fortunate in having withered. Still, I cannot say. As I told you, many women of all ages and sizes took the treatment while I was in Vienna. But they are too scattered for me at least to obtain any data on the results. I knew none of them personally and I was too busy to seek them out and compare notes.… But with me——" She leaned back and lit a cigarette, looking over her audience with mischievous eyes. "With me it has been a complete success—mentally, physically——" "Yes, and how long will it last?" shot out Mrs. Ruyler. She was as strong as a horse and as alert mentally as she had ever been, and her complete indifference to rejuvenation in any of its forms gave her a feeling of superior contempt for all those European women who had swarmed to Vienna like greedy flies at the scent of molasses—no doubt to undergo terrible torments that Mary Zattiany would not admit. But her objective curiosity on the subject of youth was insatiable and she read everything that appeared in the newspapers and magazines about it, not neglecting the advertisements. If she had sent for a facial masseuse she would have felt that she had planted a worm at the root of the family tree, but the subject was unaccountably interesting. Mary Zattiany, who understood her complex perfectly, shrugged her graceful shoulders. "It is too soon to reply with assurance. The method was only discovered some six years ago. But the eminent biologists who have given profound study to the subject estimate that it will last for ten years at least, when it can be renewed once at all events. Of course the end must come. It was not intended that man should live for ever. And who would wish it?" "Not I, certainly," said Mrs. Ruyler sententiously. "Well, I must admit it has been a complete success in your case. That is not saying I approve of what you have done. You know how we have always regarded such things. If you had lived your life in New York instead of in Europe—notoriously loose in such matters—I feel convinced that you would never have done such a thing—exhausted or not. Moreover, I am a religious woman and I do not believe in interfering with the will of the Almighty." "Then why have a doctor when you are ill? Are not illnesses the act of God? They certainly are processes of nature." "I have always believed in letting nature take her course," said Mrs. Ruyler firmly. "But of course when one is ill, that is another matter——" "Is it?" Madame Zattiany's eye showed a militant spark. "Or is it merely that you are so accustomed to the convention of calling in a doctor that you have never wasted thought on the subject? But is not medicine a science? When you are ill you invoke the aid of science in the old way precisely as I did in the new one. The time will come when this treatment I have undergone will be so much a matter of course that it will cause no more discussion than going under the knife for cancer—or for far less serious ailments. I understand that you, Polly, had an operation two years ago for gastric ulcer, an operation called by the very long and very unfamiliar name, gastroenterostomy. Did you feel—for I assume that you agree with Isabel in most things—that you were flying in the face of the Almighty? Or were you only too glad to take advantage of the progress of science?" Mrs. Vane merely grunted. Mrs. Ruyler exclaimed crossly, "Oh, no one ever could argue with you, Mary Ogden. The truth is," she added, in a sudden burst of enlightenment that astonished herself, "I don't suppose any of us would mind if you didn't look younger than our daughters. That sticks in our craw. Why not admit it?" Mrs. Oglethorpe chuckled. She and Isabel Ruyler snapped at each other like two belligerent old cats every time they crossed each other's path, but, with the exception of Mary Ogden, whom she loved, she liked her better than any of her old friends. But once more Mrs. Vane drew herself up (figuratively). "Speak for yourself. It may be that I am too old to accept new ideas, but this one certainly seems to me downright immoral and indecent. This is not intended to reflect on you personally, Mary, and of course you were more or less demoralized by your close contact with the war. I mean the idea—the thing—itself. We may call in doctors and surgeons when we are in bodily discomfort, and be thankful that they are more advanced than in our mothers' time, when people died of appendicitis every day in the week and called it inflammation of the bowels. But no one can tell me that rejuvenation is not against the laws of nature. What are you going to do with this new youth—I never saw any one look less indifferent to life!—make fools of men again—of our sons?" "Who can tell?" asked Mary maliciously. "Could anything be more amusing than to come back to New York after thirty-four years and be a belle again, with the sons and grandsons of my old friends proposing to me?" "Do you really mean that?" Mrs. Vane almost rose. She recalled that her youngest son had met Madame Zattiany in Mrs. Oglethorpe's box on Monday night and had been mooning about the house ever since. "If I thought that——" "Well, what would you do, Polly?" Mary laughed outright. "Your son—Harry is his name, is it not?—is remarkably good-looking and very charming. After all, where could you find a safer and more understanding wife for him than a woman who has had not only the opportunity to know the world and men like the primer, but looks—is—so young that he is bound to forget it and be led like a lamb? Girls, those uncharted seas, are always a risk——" "Stop tormenting Polly," exclaimed Mrs. Oglethorpe. "Mary has no intention of marrying any one. She's only waiting for her estate to be settled in order to return to Europe and devote herself to certain plans of reconstruction——" "Is that true?" "Quite true," said Madame Zattiany, smiling. "Don't worry, Polly. If I marry it will be some one you are not interested in too personally, and it is doubtful if I ever marry at all. There's a tremendous work to be done in Europe, and so far as lies in my power I shall do my share. If I marry it will be some one who can help me. I can assure you I long since ceased to be susceptible, particularly to young men. Remember that while my brain has been rejuvenated with the rest of my physical structure, my mind is as old as it was before the treatment." She gave a slight unnoticed shiver. "My memory, that for years before the war was dull and inactive, is now as vigorous as ever." Several of the women recalled those old stories of Countess Zattiany's youth, and looked at her sharply. There was a general atmosphere of uneasiness in the large respectable room. But whether or not they gave her the benefit of the doubt, they had always given her due credit for neither being found out nor embarrassing her virtuous friends with confidences. Mrs. Tracy was the first to break the silence. "But you will come to all of us as long as you do stay, will you not? I do so want to give you a dinner next week." "Yes, yes, indeed." The chorus was eager, and sincere enough. After all, nothing could alter the fact that she was one of them. "Oh, I have enjoyed meeting you all again, and I am hoping to see more of you." Madame Zattiany felt that she could do no less than be gracious. "I have become a very quiet person, but I will go with pleasure." "You must let us see you daily while you are with us," cried Mrs. Goodrich, her spirits soaring at the prospect. As Mary stood up and adjusted her hat before the mirror she felt that she had successfully distracted their attention from a quick sigh of utter boredom. "You are too kind, Nelly," she murmured, "but then you always were." "Yes, go, Mary," said Mrs. Oglethorpe peremptorily, and rising also. "Clear out and let them talk you over. They'll burst if you don't. Human nature can stand just so much and no more." Madame Zattiany took her leave amid much laughter, more or less perfunctory, and one and all, whatever their reactions, insisted that she must give her old friends the pleasure of entertaining her, and of seeing her as often as possible as long as she remained in New York. She escaped at last. That was over. But tomorrow night! Tomorrow night. Every wheel and tire seemed to be revolving out the words. Well, if he were repelled and revolted, no doubt it would be for the best. She had made up her mind to spare him nothing. He would hear far more than she had told those women. Certainly he should be given full opportunity to come to his senses. If he refused to take it, on his head be the consequences. She would have done her part. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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