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RV 76 Pauline called a "harmless flirtation" with Mrs. Herman Toy. That lady's obvious charms were no more to him, Nona suspected, than those of the florid Bathsheba in the tapestry behind his chair. But Pauline had evidently had some special reason—over and above her usual diffused benevolence—for wanting to put Manford in a good humour. "The Mahatma, probably." Nona knew how her mother hated a fuss: how vulgar and unchristian she always thought it. And it would certainly be inconvenient to give up the rest-cure at Dawnside she had planned for March, when Manford was to go off tarpon-fishing.

Nona's glance, in the intervals of talk with her neighbours, travelled farther, lit on Jim's good-humoured wistful face—Jim was always wistful at his mother's banquets—and flitted on to Aggie Heuston's precise little mask, where everything was narrow and perpendicular, like the head of a saint squeezed into a cathedral niche. But the girl's eyes did not linger, for as they rested on Aggie they abruptly met the latter's gaze. Aggie had been furtively scrutinizing her, and the discovery gave Nona a faint shock. In another instant Mrs. Heuston turned to Parker Greg, the interesting young social reformer whom Pauline had thoughtfully placed next to her, with the optimistic idea that all persons interested in improving the world must therefore be in the fullest sympathy. Nona, knowing Parker Greg's views, smiled at that too.