accordingly at first often found that in these colloquies she could only
pretend she understood. Educated as she had rapidly been by her chances
at Cocker's, there were still strange gaps in her learning--she could
never, like Mrs. Jordan, have found her way about one of the "homes."
Little by little, however, she had caught on, above all in the light of
what Mrs. Jordan's redemption had materially made of that lady, giving
her, though the years and the struggles had naturally not straightened a
feature, an almost super-eminent air. There were women in and out of
Cocker's who were quite nice and who yet didn't look well; whereas Mrs.
Jordan looked well and yet, with her extraordinarily protrusive teeth,
was by no means quite nice. It would seem, mystifyingly, that it might
really come from all the greatness she could live with. It was fine to
hear her talk so often of dinners of twenty and of her doing, as she
said, exactly as she liked with them. She spoke as if, for that matter,
she invited the company. "They simply give me the table--all the rest,
all the other effects, come afterwards."




CHAPTER VII


"Then you _do_ see them?" the girl again asked.

Mrs. Jordan hesitated, and indeed the point had been ambiguous before.
"Do you mean the guests?"

Her young friend, cautious about an undue exposure of innocence, was not
quite sure. "Well--the people who live there."