It was the afternoon of Ruth Holland's return to Freeport that Edith Lawrence—now Edith Lawrence Blair—was giving the tea for Deane Franklin's bride and for Cora Albright, introducing Amy to the society of the town and giving Cora another opportunity for meeting old friends. "You see Cora was of our old crowd," Edith was laughingly saying to one of the older women in introducing her two guests of honor, "and Amy has married into it." She turned to Amy with a warm little smile and nod, as if wanting to assure her again that they did look upon her as one of them.

They had indeed given her that sense of being made one of them. Their quick, warm acceptance of her made them seem a wonderfully kindly people. Her heart warmed to them because of this going out to her, a stranger. That informality and friendliness which in a society like theirs prevails well within the bounds made them seem to her a people of real warmth. She was pleased with the thought of living among them, being one of them; gratified, not only in the way they seemed to like her, but by the place they gave her. There were happy little anticipations of the life just opening up. She was flushed with pleasure and gratification.

She was seeing the society of the town at its best that afternoon; the women who constituted that society were there, and at their best. For some reason they always were at their best at the Lawrences', as if living up to the house itself, which was not only one of the most imposing of the homes of that rich little middle-western city, but had an atmosphere which other houses, outwardly equally attractive, lacked. Mrs. Lawrence had taste and hospitality; the two qualities breathed through her house. She and Edith were Freeport's most successful hostesses. The society of that town was like the particular thing known as society in other towns; not distinguished by any unique thing so much as by its likeness to the thing in general. Amy, knowing society in other places, in a larger place, was a little surprised and much pleased at what she recognized.

And she felt that people were liking her, admiring her, and that always put her at her best. Sometimes Amy's poise, rare in one so young, made her seem aloof, not cordial, and she had not been one to make friends quickly. Edith's friendliness had broken through that; she talked more than was usual with her—was gayer, more friendly. "You're making a great hit, my dear," Edith whispered to her gayly, and Amy flushed with pleasure. People about the room were talking of how charming she was; of there being something unusual in that combination of girlishness and—they called it distinction; had Amy been in different mood they might have spoken of it less sympathetically as an apparent feeling of superiority. But she felt that she was with what she called her own sort, and she was warmed in gratification by the place given herself.

She was gayly telling a little group of an amusing thing that had happened at her wedding when she overheard someone saying to Edith, by whom she was standing: "Yes, on the two o'clock train. I was down to see Helen off, and saw her myself—walking away with Ted."

Amy noticed that the other women, who also had overheard, were only politely appearing to be listening to her now, and were really discreetly trying to hear what these two were saying. She brought her story to a close.

"You mean Ruth Holland?" one of the women asked, and the two groups became one.

Amy drew herself up; her head went a little higher, her lips tightened; then, conscious of that, she relaxed and stood a little apart, seeming only to be courteously listening to a thing in which she had no part. They talked in lowered tones of how strange it seemed to feel Ruth was back in that town. They had a different manner now—a sort of carefully restrained avidity. "How does she look?" one of the women asked in that lowered tone.

"Well," said the woman who had been at the train, "she hasn't kept herself up. Really, I was surprised. You'd think a woman in her position would make a particular effort to—to make the most of herself, now, wouldn't you? What else has she to go on? But really, she wasn't at all good style, and sort of—oh, as if she had let herself go, I thought. Though,"—she turned to Edith in saying this—"there's that same old thing about her; I saw her smile up at Ted as they walked away—and she seemed all different then. You know how it always used to be with Ruth—so different from one minute to another."

Edith turned away, rather abruptly, and joined another group. Amy could not make out her look; it seemed—why it seemed pain; as if it hurt her to hear what they were saying. Could it be that she still cared?—after the way she had been treated? That seemed impossible, even in one who had the sweet nature Mrs. Blair certainly had.

While the women about her were still talking of Ruth Holland, Amy saw Stuart Williams' wife come out of the dining room and stand there alone for a minute looking about the room. It gave her a shock. The whole thing seemed so terrible, so fascinatingly terrible. And it seemed unreal; as a thing one might read or hear about, but not the sort of thing one's own life would come anywhere near. Mrs. Williams' eyes rested on their little group and Amy had a feeling that somehow she knew what they were talking about. As her eyes followed the other woman's about the room she saw that there were several groups in which people were drawn a little closer together and appeared to be speaking a little more intimately than was usual upon such an occasion. She felt that Mrs. Williams' face became more impassive. A moment later she had come over to Amy and was holding out her hand. There seemed to Amy something very brave about her, dignified, fine, in the way she went right on, bearing it, holding her own place, keeping silence. She watched her leave the room with a new sense of outrage against that terrible woman—that woman Deane stood up for! The resentment which in the past week she had been trying to put down leaped to new life.

The women around her resumed their talk: of Mrs. Williams, the Holland family, of the night of Edith's wedding when—in that very house—Ruth Holland had been there up to the very last minute, taking her place with the rest of them. They spoke of her betrayal of Edith, her deception of all her friends, of how she was the very last girl in the world they would have believed it of.

A little later, when she and Edith were talking with some other guests, Ruth Holland was mentioned again. "I don't want to talk of Ruth," Edith said that time; "I'd rather not." There was a catch in her voice and one of the women impulsively touched her arm. "It was so terrible for you, dear Edith," she murmured.

"Sometimes," said Edith, "it comes home to me that it was pretty terrible for Ruth." Again she turned away, leaving an instant's pause behind her. Then one of the women said, "I think it's simply wonderful that Edith can have anything but bitterness in her heart for Ruth Holland! Why there's not another person in town—oh, except Deane Franklin, of course—"

She caught herself, reddened, then turned to Amy with a quick smile. "And it's just his sympathetic nature, isn't it? That's exactly Deane—taking the part of one who's down."

"And then, too, men feel differently about those things," murmured another one of the young matrons of Deane's crowd.

Their manner of seeming anxious to smooth something over, to get out of a difficult situation, enraged Amy, not so much against them as because of there being something that needed smoothing over, because Deane had put himself and her in a situation that was difficult. How did it look?—what must people think?—his standing up for a woman the whole town had turned against! But she was saying with what seemed a sweet gravity, "I'm sure Deane would be sorry for any woman who had been so—unfortunate. And she," she added bravely, "was a dear old friend, was she not?"

The woman who had commiserated with Edith now nodded approval at Amy. "You're sweet, my dear," she said, and the benign looks of them all made her feel there was something for her to be magnanimous about, something queer. Her resentment intensified because of having to give that impression of a sweet spirit. And so people talked about Deane's standing up for this Ruth Holland! Why did they talk?—just what did they say? "There's more to it than I know," suspicion whispered. In that last half hour it was hard to appear gracious and interested; she saw a number of those little groups in which voices were low and faces were trying not to appear eager.

She wished she knew what they were saying; she had an intense desire to hear more about this thing which she so resented, which was so roiling to her. It fascinated as well as galled her; she wanted to know just how this Ruth Holland looked, how she had looked that night of the wedding, what she had said and done. The fact of being in the very house where Ruth Holland had been that last night she was with her friends seemed to bring close something mysterious, terrible, stirring imagination and curiosity. Had she been with Deane that night? Had he taken her to the wedding?—taken her home? She hardened to him in the thought of there being this thing she did not know about. It began to seem he had done her a great wrong in not preparing her for a thing that could bring her embarrassment. Everyone else knew about it! Coming there a bride, and the very first thing encountering something awkward! She persuaded herself that her pleasure in this party, in this opening up of her life there, was spoiled, that Deane had spoiled it. And she tormented herself with a hundred little wonderings.

She and Cora Albright went home together in Edith's brougham. Cora was full of talk of Ruth Holland, this new development, Ruth's return, stirring it all up again for her. Amy's few discreet questions brought forth a great deal that she wanted to know. Cora had a worldly manner, and that vague sympathy with evil that poetizes one's self without doing anything so definite as condoning, or helping, the sinner.

"I do think," she said, with a little shrug, "that the town has been pretty hard about it. But then you know what these middle-western towns are." Amy, at this appeal to her sophistication, gravely nodded. "I do feel sorry for Ruth," Cora added in a more personal tone.

"Will you go to see her?" Amy asked, rather pointedly.

"Oh, I couldn't do that," replied Cora. "My family—you know,—or perhaps you don't know. I'm related to Mrs. Williams," she laughed.

"Oh!" Amy ejaculated, aghast, and newly fascinated by the horror, what somehow seemed the impossibleness of the whole thing—that she should be talking of Ruth Holland to a woman related to Mrs. Williams!

"I suppose she felt terribly," Amy murmured.

Cora laughed a little. "Oh, I don't know. It never seemed to me that Marion would do much feeling. Feeling is so—ruffling."

"She looks," said Amy, a little aggressively, "as though she might not show all she feels."

"Oh, I suppose not," Cora agreed pleasantly. "Perhaps I do Marion an injustice. She may have suffered in silence. Certainly she's kept silence. Truth is, I never liked her so very well. I like Ruth much the better of the two. I like warmth—feeling."

She was leaning forward and looking from the window. "That's the Hollands'," she said. And under her breath, compassionately, she murmured, "Poor Ruth!"

"I should think you would go and see her," said Amy, curiously resentful of this feeling.

With a little sigh Cora leaned back in the luxurious corner. "We're not free to do what we might like to do in this life," she said, looking gravely at Amy and speaking as one actuated by something larger than personal feeling. "Too many people are associated with me for me to go and see Ruth—as, for my own part, I'd gladly do. You see it's even closer than being related to Marion. Cyrus Holland,—Ruth's brother—married into my family too. Funny, isn't it?" she laughed at Amy's stare. "Yes, Cyrus Holland married a second cousin of Stuart Williams' wife."

"Why—" gasped Amy, "it's positively weird, isn't it?"

"Things are pretty much mixed up in this world," Cora went on, speaking with that good-natured sophistication which appealed to Amy as worldly. "I think one reason Cy was so bitter against Ruth, and kept the whole family so, was the way it broke into his own plans. He was in love with Louise at the time Ruth left; of course all her kith and kin—being also Marion's—were determined she should not marry a Holland. Cy thought he had lost her, but after a time, as long as no one was quite so bitter against Ruth as he, the opposition broke down a little—enough for Louise to ride over it. Oh, yes, in these small towns everybody's somehow mixed up with everyone else," she laughed. "And of course," she went on more gravely, "that is where it is hard to answer the people who seem so hard about Ruth. It isn't just one's self, or even just one's family—though it broke them pretty completely, you know; but a thing like that reaches out into so many places—hurts so many lives."

"Yes," said Amy, "it does." She was thinking of her own life, of how it was clouding her happiness.

"One has to admit," said Cora, in the tone of summing it all up, "that just taking one's own happiness is thorough selfishness. Society as a whole is greater than the individual, isn't it?"

That seemed to Amy the heart of it. She felt herself as one within society, herself faithful to it and guarding it against all who would do it harm; hard to the traitor, not because of any personal feeling—she wished to make that clear to herself—but because society as a whole demanded that hardness. After she had bade Cora good-by and as she was about to open the door of the house Deane had prepared for her, she told herself that it was a matter of taking the larger view. She was pleased with the phrase; it seemed to clear her own feeling of any possible charge of smallness.