"My dear--"

"I do."

"But why?"

"Please, I don't want to talk about it--wait until we get home."

Looking out over the heads of the swaying crowd, she saw that Derry was
dancing with Alma Drew. And it was Alma who had said at the
Witherspoon dinner, "Everybody will forgive a man with money."

And that was what Ralph had thought of her, that she was like
Alma--that money could buy her--that she would sell the honor of her
country for gold--.

But worse than any hurt of her own was the hurt of the thing for Derry.
Ralph Witherspoon had dared to point a finger of scorn at him--other
people had dared--

She suffered intensely, not as a child, but as a woman.

Alma, out on the floor, was saying to Derry, "I saw you dancing with
Jean McKenzie. She's a quaint little duck."

"Not a duck, Alma," he was smiling, "a white dove--or a silver swan."
The look that he sent across the room to Jean was a revelation.

Like Ralph, she grew hateful. "So that's it? Well, a man with money
can get anything."