"You say I'm an old idiot like Judith," he begged. This Linda
declined to do. And, "Ask your mother if you won't come to dinner
with the girls and me, cozy and at home--just once."

"I'm afraid it will do no good," she admitted; "but I'll try." She
realized that he was about to kiss her and moved quickly back. "I am
almost afraid of you," he told her; "you're so distant and elegant.
Judith and Pansy would get on with you first rate. I'll telephone
tomorrow, in the afternoon. If the last flowers I sent you came I
never heard of it."

She thanked him appropriately for the roses and stood, erect and
impersonal, as a man in the hotel livery helped him into a coat. Mr.
Moses Feldt waved the still unlighted cigar at her and disappeared
through the rotating door to the street.

She gave a half-affected sigh of relief. Couldn't he see that her
mother would never marry him. At the same time the strange thrill
touched her; the sense of his absurdity vanished and she no longer
remembered him perched like a painted rubber ball on the edge of the
lounge.

In the somber red plush and varnished wood of the reception-room of
their suite he seemed again charming. Perhaps it was because he,
too, adored her mother. That wasn't the reason. The familiar rare
joy lingered. It seemed now as though she were to capture and
understand it ... there was the vibration of music; and then, as
always, she felt at once sad and brave. But, in spite of her old
effort to the contrary, the feeling died away. Some day it would be
clear to her; in the meanwhile Mr. Moses Feldt became once more only