plum-colored silk and for her husband's dress-coat; and the cutting of
this last cable set her completely adrift on the wide and forlorn
sea of utter social neglect. And the Beldens!--that was the last straw of
all. She seemed to see her husband crowded from his seat at that cheery
board by a man whom he himself had taken up and made--a man who was
trying to push him from the social world, just as he was trying to push
him out of the control of the business which he had founded and
developed. It was all more than she could bear.

Jane rushed headlong into another mood. "Oh, well, the end of the world
hasn't come if we _are_ frozen out. And perhaps we're not, anyway; the
invite may get round to-morrow--who knows? So don't let's order our
sackcloth and ashes quite yet awhile. Life is still worth living, and we
have got several other strings to our bow.

"This one, for instance," nodding in the direction of Rosy, towards whom
she seemed inexhaustibly forgiving. "I have the honor to present to the
waiting world Miss Rosamund Marshall, the bud of the season and the
success of the century. Also her brother, Mr. Truesdale Marshall, who has
come home stuffed full of accomplishments, and who will now proceed to
show them. He sings--"

She stepped across to her brother, slipped her arm through his, and drew
him towards the rug in the middle of the room.

Her height was within an inch of his own. She bowed him over the edge of
the rug as over a row of footlights, crooked his other arm so that his
hand was placed over his heart, put her own hand sprawlingly in a like
position, threw back her head, and abandoned herself to a shrill
succession of scales and roulades.