"It would never do for Pansy," she concluded; "but I must get Markue
to ask you sometime, Linda. How old are you now? Well, that's
practically sixteen, and you are very grown up. You would be quite
sensational, in one of your plain white frocks, in his apartment.
You'd have to promise not to tell your mother, though. She thinks
I'm leading you astray now--the old dear. Does she think I am blind?
I met a man last week, a friend of father's, who used to know her.
Of course he wouldn't say anything, men are such idiots about
that--like ostriches with their pasts buried and all the feathers
sticking out--but there was a champagne expression in his smile."

Linda wondered, later, if she'd care to go to a party of Markue's.
There was a great deal of drinking at such affairs; and though she
rather liked cordials, creme de the and Grand Marnier, even stronger
things flavored with limes and an occasional frigid cocktail, she
disliked--from a slight experience--men affected by drink. Judith
had called her a constitutional prude; this, she understood, was a
term of reproach; and she wondered if, applied to her, it were just.

Usually it meant a religious person or one fussy about the edge of
her skirt; neither of which she ever considered. She didn't like to
sit in a corner and be hugged--even that she could now assert with a
degree of knowledge--but it wasn't because she was shocked. Nothing,
she told herself gravely, shocked her; only certain acts and moments
annoyed her excessively. It was as if her mind were a crisp dress
with ribbons which she hated to have mussed or disarranged.

Linda didn't take the trouble to explain this. Now that her mother
had withdrawn from her into a perpetual and uncomfortable politeness