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Florence’s lip curled drolly under her soup spoon. She shot an amused glance at her mother’s dignity.

“Nothing doing,” her keen eyes seemed to say.

Though Florence was nearly thirty and her sister a little beyond, there was, seriously, nothing doing. With so many charms and so much preparation, they never, as Florence vulgarly said, quite pulled it off. They had been rushed, time and again, and Mrs. Wanning had repeatedly steeled herself to bear the blow. But the young men went to follow a career in Mexico or the Philippines, or moved to Yonkers, and escaped without a mortal wound.

Roma turned graciously to her father.

“I met Mr. Lane at the Holland House today, where I was lunching with the Burtons, father. He asked about you, and when I told him you were not so well as usual, he said he would call you up. He wants to tell you about some doctor he discovered in Iowa, who cures everything with massage and hot water. It sounds freakish, but Mr. Lane is a very clever man, isn’t he?”

“Very,” assented Wanning.

“I should think he must be!” sighed Mrs. Wanning. “How in the world did he make all that money, Paul? He didn’t seem especially promising years ago, when we used to see so much of them.”

“Corporation business. He’s attorney for the P. L. and G.,” murmured her husband.

“What a pile he must have!” Florence watched the old negro’s slow movements with restless eyes. “Here is Jenny, a Contessa, with a glorious palace in Genoa that her father must have bought her. Surely Aldrini had nothing. Have you seen the baby count’s pictures, Roma? They’re very cunning. I should think you’d go to Genoa and visit Jenny.”

“We must arrange that, Roma. It’s such an opportunity.” Though Mrs. Wanning addressed her daughter, she looked at her husband. “You would get on so well among their friends. When Count Aldrini was here you spoke Italian much better than poor Jenny. I remember when we entertained him, he could scarcely say anything to her at all.”

Florence tried to call up an answering flicker of amusement upon her sister’s calm, well-bred face. She thought her mother was rather outdoing herself tonight,–since Aldrini had at least managed to say the one important thing to Jenny, somehow, somewhere. Jenny Lane had been Roma’s friend and schoolmate, and the Count was an ephemeral hope in Orange. Mrs. Wanning was one of the first matrons to declare that she had no prejudices against foreigners, and at the dinners that were given for the Count, Roma was always put next him to act as interpreter.

Roma again turned to her father.

“If I were you, dear, I would let Mr. Lane tell me about his doctor. New discoveries are often made by queer people.”

Roma’s voice was low and sympathetic; she never lost her dignity.

Florence asked if she might have her coffee in her room, while she dashed off a note, and she ran upstairs humming “Bright Lights” and wondering how she was going to stand her family until the summer scattering. Why could Roma never throw off her elegant reserve and call things by their names? She sometimes thought she might like her sister, if she would only come out in the open and howl about her disappointments.

Roma, drinking her coffee deliberately, asked her father if they might have the car early, as they wanted to pick up Mr. Allen and Mr. Rydberg on their way to rehearsal.

Wanning said certainly. Heaven knew he was not stingy about his car, though he could never quite forget that in his day it was the young men who used to call for the girls when they went to rehearsals.

“You are going with us, Mother?” Roma asked as they rose.

“I think so dear. Your father will want to go to bed early, and I shall sleep better if I go out. I am going to town tomorrow to pour tea for Harold. We must get him some new silver, Paul. I am quite ashamed of his spoons.”