at-ease and inferior; for it removed any possible doubt of the social superiority of this girl with whom each Metten felt in a privileged position. This was the sensation they had hoped for; this was why they had come. So mamma and her daughters blushed far beyond the borders of their overgenerous rouge, in the delight of this embarrassed meeting.
Jay, watching his wife, drew a bit into the background. Lida was amusing herself, he saw, but also doing something more. What? What was she after? Bother over the Mettens' sensitiveness was fled from him. Lida completely enchanted them. He realized that he, in comparison with his wife, had disappointed them. Closcly and eagerly, they clustered about Lida.
Over mamnia's substantial shoulder, Lida smiled at him with her lips and with her dark, flashing eyes, she laughed at him. What did she mean to do next?
No use trying to guess. He noticed how her eyes, although almost the match of these Mettens' in color, yet in no way were reproduced by theirs; he noticed how she stood out from them, as she did from most women, not merely in smartness and manner, but with more vitality. It was remarkable in contrast to these people, characterized, as they were, by extraordinary energy and eagerness. Lida was quicker, lighter, incomparably pleasing, incomparably alive.
Thrills of admiration and envy warmed Phil Metten as his brown eyes searched her for her secret. It was altogether too late for him to make over mamma into such a woman as she should be, even if Phil at this moment discovered the formula of "class"; too late, even for Ruby
