factory girl could wear just the same shape if she wanted to."

"And she doesn't want to, foolish girl? She wants to wear your mother's
kind instead?"

"She would dimly recognize it as the unattainable perfection of what she
wants. It would pierce."

"Make for envy, you think?"

"Well, I can't see that she would do them any _good_," said Imogen, now
altogether in her lighter, happier mood, "but since they may do _her_ good
I must, I think, take her there some day."

"And am I to do her some good? Am I to see her to-night?" Jack asked,
feeling that though her humor a little jarred on him he could do nothing
better than echo it. Imogen, now, had one of her frankest, prettiest looks.

"Do you know, she is almost too discreet, poor dear," she said. "She wants
me to see that she perfectly understands and sympathizes with the American
freedom as to friendships between men and women, so that she vacates
the drawing-room for my people just as a farmer's wife would do for her
daughter's young men. She hasn't asked me even a question about you, Jack!"

Her gaiety so lifted and warmed him that he was prompted to say that Mrs.
Upton would have to, very soon, if the answer to a certain question that he
wanted to ask Imogen were what he hoped for. But the jocund atmosphere of
their talk seemed unfit for such a grave allusion and he repressed the
sally.