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“No, ink! Just as black and disgusting. They’ve squandered hundreds on this bridge party; all the prizes were bought abroad, I hear, and Kathryn Van Rensselaer told me there were to be fifty tables,” continued Mrs. Norman.

“It will be one of those horribly vulgar affairs with five times as much of everything as there is any need of, I suppose,” rejoined Ethel scornfully.

“Do you know, I hear that ballroom is the most magnificent in New York–done entirely by Garten-Veen.”

“Well, we shall at least hear about it,” sighed Mrs. Norman, with a slight tinge of regret in her tone, “we’ll telephone–you have one of course!”

“Have a telephone? Well, I should say! One might as well be out of the world as try to live without one. Everyone has one now,” answered Mrs. Danielson with a shrug.

“Then do call me up and tell me everything you hear,” said Mrs. Norman eagerly, “and I will call you. Thank Heaven, there are two of us with conscience enough to block the Christys’ social pathway!”

During the week preceding the much talked of function, one heard it on every hand. Some said the prizes alone mounted up into the hundreds; others announced that the decorations were to be the floral marvel of the season; two reporters had been permitted to view Mrs. Christy’s gown and wrote exhaustive descriptions on this monument to the Parisian art.

Mrs. Norman and Ethel Danielson had frequent long gossips over the telephone, relating each fresh item and exulting that they, at least, had not lost their heads.

“Elise Thayer says she shall not go if we don’t,” called Mrs. Norman with great satisfaction; “I have talked to her very seriously about it and told her it was her duty to the rest of us to stay away, and she says she will. No, I haven’t sent regrets yet–I shall wait until the last moment and be as nasty as I can,” and Mrs. Norman gave a rippling laugh.

At last the eventful day of the great bridge party came and among the early arriving guests was Mrs. Norman. She glanced around her, noting critically every detail of the luxurious house with its exquisite appointments. Of course Ethel Danielson and Elise Thayer would hear that she had come and be furious, but she was well prepared with explanations when next she should meet them. She had planned it all very carefully.

She was sweeping down the staircase to greet her hostess when she suddenly stopped aghast! From opposite directions–entirely unconscious of the other’s approach–came Ethel Danielson and Elise Thayer. There was no avoiding the collision at the foot of the stairs and the three women were brought abruptly face to face.

“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.