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read.”
    “What you mean is, you haven’t read it. Have you?”
    “Well, no. But I intend to and I’m sure it’s perfectly lovely.”
    “It’s perfectly lousy, Floodie. Poor Dick.”
    “Allison Sar-gent!” Mrs. Flood gasped. “You should really have. . . . ” Mrs. Flood’s tirade was halted by Bertha, who entered the room again to place a tray of decanters on the coffee table. A Lady did not have Scenes before servants. “Bertha, just look,” Mrs. Flood said effusively. “Miss Allison has a new red dress! I was just saying to her that she really should have her picture taken just this way—in color of course. Don’t you think so?”
    “I don’t think the shade suits her,” Bertha said. “Good evening, Miss Allison.”
    “Neither do I. Good evening, Bertha.”
    Mrs. Flood waited patiently while Bertha left the room. Then, lowering her voice ominously, she returned to Allison. “Now you just listen to me, Allison Sargent,” she said dangerously, “if you had any notion of what your poor mother had to go through withDicky and his book—helping him, encouraging him whenever he thought he couldn’t write another line. . . .”
    “If you’d ever read some of Dicky’s lines, instead of just pounding them out on the typewriter, you’d have discouraged him,” Allison said. “He didn’t want to write that novel, Floodie, and you know it.”
    “I don’t know anything of the sort, Allison Sargent,” Mrs. Flood hissed indignantly. “But I do know that you’re just about the worst little ingrate I’ve ever seen! When I think of the sacrifices your poor mother has made so that you and Dicky. . . . Oh!” Too outraged to go on, Mrs. Flood made a great show of snatching a cigarette from her case, jamming it into her holder and flicking her lighter. Then, through the smoke, she noticed that Allison was almost in tears. Mrs. Flood was not an unkind woman. “Allison, darling,” she said. “You’re young. Oh, I know. I was, too—about a million years ago. Coming out can be very nerve-racking and you always were shy. I was, myself. Now do run upstairs and get ready for this magazine reporter. And, Allison, dear? Why don’t you try a really bright lipstick and perhaps a bit of blue on your eyes—just to please your mother?”
    “Oh, for God’s sake! What’s the use?” Allison said and slammed out of the room.
    Exhausted, Mrs. Flood sank into a chair and pondered the ways of the young.
     

VII.
     
    The express elevator reserved just for Sheila and a sort of bodyguard composed of two ladies wearing committee badges was a nicety which Sheila appreciated. Now all she would have to do would be to get down to the ground floor, make her good-bys to the committee girls, move graciously through the little throng of women who “just had to have a word in private” and sink into the back of the car.
    “The most successful luncheon meeting we’ve had since Bishop Sheen addressed us,” one of the women was saying,
    “Why, thank you,” Sheila said. “The bishop is a hard act to follow.”
    “He was only a monsignor then,” the other woman said.
    “Well, I certainly am honored,” Sheila said. “But I’m glad you didn’t tell me until after the meeting. I’d have been much too frightened to have opened my mouth.”
    “You? Oh, never!” The ladies laughed delightedly.
    “Bishop Sheen comes from Peoria,” the woman Sheila remem bered as Mrs. McCarthy said. “My own people are from there.”
    “Is that so?” Sheila said, all alert interest.
    “Ground floor.”
    “Oh, dear,” Sheila said. “So soon. Well do let me thank you again for a delicious luncheon and I really have enjoyed meeting you and talking to all of you. It’s been a real pleasure.”
    “Oh, can’t we. . . .”
    “I won’t let you take me another step,” Sheila said. “The twoof you must be exhausted organizing this big luncheon—all those details. I can’t think how you do it all. Well, good-by again