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The others were ready to go when they returned from the collie nursery, and the three young men stood for a moment in a row near the door. Gail looked them over with a puzzled expression. What was there about them which was so attractive? Was it poise, sureness, polish, breeding, experience, insolence, grooming—what? Even the stiff Van Ploon seemed smooth of bearing to-night!

“Come home, Gail,” begged Clemmens, when the noisy party had laughed its way out of the door and Aunt Helen Davies had gone upstairs.

She knew what was in his mind, but compassion overcame her resentment, because there was suffering in his voice and in his eyes. She smiled on him forgivingly, and did not withdraw the hand he took again.

“New York’s an evil place,” he urged. “Who are these friends of yours?” and he looked at her accusingly.

“Why, they are tremendously nice people, Howard,” she told him, forgiving him again because he did not understand. “Lucile is the pretty cousin about whom I wrote you, Ted is her husband, and the others are their friends.”