Long before the tea was over, Grace Goodchild, two miles north of him, realized that H.R. was one of those detestable persons who are always right. A dozen of her intimates surrounded her in the Dutch room. They all talked at once. When eleven stopped for lack of breath the twelfth, who very cleverly had saved hers, asked:

"Did they really pick you out, Grace?"

The speaker was not perfectly beautiful. But she was wise and therefore a virgin.

"No!" said Grace. "But really, I don't want to have anything to do with it."

"If Hendrik was my Hendrik, I'd be It," said the wise virgin, determinedly, "or he'd know it!"

"He told me," Grace spoke modestly, "that only perfectly beautiful girls would be chosen. And so of course that lets me out!"

"Oh-h-h-h!" came in chorus. There ensued much whispering. Grace flushed. No woman likes to be accused of mendacity monosyllabically. It made her dislike H.R. more than ever.

"Does your father," asked the wise one, "still oppose—"

"He does," answered Grace. Then she added, "Of course."

"I think your father—" And the wise one bit her lips. You would have thought she was snipping off thread with her teeth. A well-bred person must do this oftener than a seamstress—to keep herself from telling the truth.

"My father," tactfully observed Marion Molyneux, "could oppose until the cows came home."

"Mamma is on the commission and I'm not eligible, so I am not after his vote," said Ethel Vandergilt. "But I'd love to meet him, Grace. Is he all they say he is?"

Grace Goodchild for the first time began to realize that H.R. was a remarkable man. She realized it by the simple expedient of disliking Ethel.

"Is it true that he'll do anything you tell him?" cut in Cynthia Coleman, enviously. She was a very pretty girl, with the absurd doll face that makes men feel so manly. She had brains. A girl with that face always has. She shows it by never showing them. The face does the trick more quickly.

Grace said, calmly, "H.R. never—"

"Oh, girls, she calls him H.R., too!" exclaimed Marion.

Feeling herself one of a multitude made Grace feel a mere human being. Created in the image of God, each of them naturally desires to feel like a goddess.

"I do not call him H.R.," said Grace, coldly.

"It is more important to know what he calls her," observed the wise one.

Grace remembered what H.R. had called her. She felt herself blushing with anger. Truly, the gods were kind to H.R.

"Coming back to our muttons, are you going to introduce us?" asked Ethel Vandergilt.

"I'm not going to have anything to do with the affair," said Grace, decisively.

"Aren't you?" said the wise one. It barely missed being a sneer.

"Why not?" asked Ethel. She was the best-gowned woman in the United States. And she was ex-officio hors concours.

Grace Goodchild felt the stare of twenty pairs of eyes of differing degrees of brightness, but of the same degree of unbelief. They irritated her by flattering her. No woman can concentrate when watched by other women. Grace, therefore, was compelled to live up to the rÔle which society had assigned to her, whether she liked it or not.

When you tell a man he is wise and ask for advice, he looks as wise as he can and answers ambiguously. When you tell a woman you don't believe her she indignantly tells you the truth.

"One of the reasons"—she spoke very sweetly—"is that he said my friends would ask me to do it but he did not wish me to add to his troubles."

The girls were listening with their very souls, for this was inside news.

Grace went on: "The commission will be absolutely impartial—"

"You don't know mother!" muttered Ethel Vandergilt.

Grace heard her, and she said, rebukingly, "Yes, absolutely impartial and—"

"Are you chosen one of the hundred?" asked the wise virgin.

"Yes, I am!" answered Grace, defiantly. "I had nothing to do with it. This whole affair is exceedingly distasteful to me."

"Of course!" came in a great chorus.

To agree with her in that tone of voice was intolerable.

Grace's hatred shifted from the unspeakable H.R. to these bosom friends. If it were not that H.R. was always right, she wouldn't dislike him so much.

"It is not that I mind not being one of the hundred, but the not being asked to be," muttered the doll face.

It was obviously what all of them minded.

Ethel Vandergilt said: "If I could make my mother resign I'd offer my services. But she is not the resigning kind. Good-by. I'm crazy to meet your H.R."

Well, they were welcome to him—if she made up her mind she did not want him for herself.

The moment the last false friend left, Grace's tolerant smile vanished.

Was she, in sooth, chosen Number One? The papers said it was only a rumor.

Suppose she was not Number One, after all? Supposing the commission—

"I could kill him!" she hissed, and left the room.

Frederick came to her. "Miss Goodchild, there are five reporters waiting to see you."

"Say I'm not at home!" Then she called the man back. "Ask them what they want," and went up-stairs to her room.

Frederick returned presently and reported: "They say they will do themselves the honor to inform you in person if you will be kind enough to see them. And, Miss—" He paused. He had exceeded his duty.

"What is it, Frederick?" asked Grace, knowing that the imperturbable cockney was perturbed.

"There is quite a crowd outside. They are photographing the ladies, ma'am."

"What ladies?"

"Begging your pardon, Miss Vandergilt and the others, ma'am."

"Where?"

"Just in front of the door. Mr. Goodchild had some trouble in getting in, ma'am. He's quite vexed about it, but it wasn't my fault, ma'am," he said, forgetting that he was a menial; that is, protesting against injustice. "I couldn't help it, ma'am."

"Very well, Frederick," she said, graciously, and descended.

Five reporters were politely listening to Mr. Goodchild's vituperations. Therefore his daughter walked down the stairs as majesty descends from the dais. One of the reporters started to meet her half-way.

"Hey! confound you, come down!" shrieked papa.

"Miss Goodchild, we wished to ask you if you had been chosen as the first of the perfectly beautiful hundred. Now that we have seen you at close range, the question is unnecessary."

She smiled slightly; then ceased to smile. The intelligent young man proceeded courteously: "Will you therefore kindly tell us when the wedding will be?"

All reporters are psychologists in their interrogations. The other reporters ceased listening to Mr. Goodchild and as politely as the circumstances permitted took out paper and pencils.

When an angry man is suddenly deprived of his audience he becomes a mental assassin.

Mr. Goodchild blamed it on H.R.

"She'll never marry that infernal idiot!" he shrieked. He was the head of the house.

"Ah yes," said the diplomatist on the stair, looking as though he had memorized the exact words. "Ah yes! June! Thank you." He nodded gratefully at Mr. Goodchild, jotted down a date, and put the paper in his pocket.

"Congratulations, Miss Goodchild," he said to her, with profound respect, and descended. In the hall he said to his colleagues: "Come on, boys. We've got the month. She is Number One, and—"

"If you dare to print anything I'll have you fired," fumed Mr. Goodchild.

"If you were a younger man I'd tell you to fire your grandmother, sir. But I fear me she is, alas! no more. In the mean time, Mr. Goodchild, will you be good enough to pose for our artist? Look pleasant, please. You'll have to close your mouth to do it. Wilson, you may begin filming when ready!" he said to his photographer, who had just pushed past Frederick.

Sounds of cheering and applause came from the street. The ultra-fashionable friends of Grace Goodchild, having been photographed, were shaking hands with the artists and spelling their own names to the reporters.

The gaping proletariate, seeing such graciousness, recognized the aristocracy of the democracy and were cheering madly. An aristocracy whose sense of humor makes it kindly is lasting.

"Them's real swells!" shrieked a red-headed girl who carried a large bandbox.

More cheers.

At that moment Grace Goodchild, impelled by an irresistible curiosity appeared at her door.

"There she is! Hooray!" proudly shrieked two hundred and eighteen potential Socialists, making room for Bishop Phillipson.

Hoping they were not too late for the wedding, the throngs clapped furiously. Even at marriages there are encore fiends.

"How do you do, my child?" inquired the Bishop, with a tolerant smile.

"Please turn around, Bishop!" shrieked the Journal artist. He was paid by the portrait.

The Bishop did so, smiled benignantly, saw the shutter open and close, and then said, deprecatingly:

"I do not wish my picture taken, sir."

"No, sir. Will you give us another shot, Bishop?"

The reverend gentleman waited a moment and then shook his head and turned his back rebukingly on the photographers, who a second time had not respected his wishes.

"Such is fame, Bishop Phillipson," Grace told him, with a smile.

"Reflected greatness, rather," said the Bishop, with his courtly kindliness.

"It's an infernal outrage!" came in a husky voice from the house.

"It's papa. He doesn't understand—"

"He and I are too old, I fear," smiled the Bishop, mournfully. "And how is H.R., my dear?"

She shook her head and frowned. Always that person!

"A most remarkable young man," pursued the Bishop, congratulatorily. He had received three and one-half bushels of letters from utter strangers, commending his practical Christianity and his highly intelligent plan for feeding the hungry. Five vestry-men also had expressed their gratification that his name headed the list of the men who had made New York the greatest city of the hemisphere. It looked as though the hungry were to be fed.

The Bishop and Grace moved out of the doorway to allow the reporters to pass, and were themselves about to enter the house when a sound of cheering made them halt in their tracks.

A vast crowd was walking up the Avenue. In the van marched one of H.R.'s free sandwiches. He was dressed in crimson broadcloth (from Morton & Co. as per the next morning's accounts) and he wore a shining silk hat (Fox Brothers, as per same in the Times, Herald, and Tribune). The sandwich-board was a most gorgeous affair—a shield of burnished gold (by Cellini & Co., Florentine frame-makers) on which were the arms of the City of New York in heraldic colors. Beneath, in six-inch letters of glittering turquoise enamel, was:

In front of the Goodchild mansion the stalwart free sandwich stopped, faced Miss Goodchild, raised his glittering top-hat, and held it in the air, Beau Brummelesquely.

Andrew Barrett was immediately behind the herald of the free and intelligent people of the greatest city of the New World.

A hush fell on the multitude.

"Speech!" shrieked Andrew Barrett.

"Speech!" shrieked twelve hundred and thirty-eight intelligent New-Yorkers and seven bankers.

"There's Bishop Phillipson!" shrilled a correctly gowned elderly lady, pointing a jeweled lorgnette at the Bishop of New York. It meant the Church approved.

"Hooray for the Bishop! Bishop! Bishop!"

"Vox populi, vox Dei," murmured the Bishop to himself.

"Say something, my child," he gently urged Grace. "After all, we may dislike the way it is done, but if the hungry are fed we may be forgiven."

Grace Goodchild burned with desire to make a wonderful speech to prove that her greatness was her very own. They wanted her, not H.R., this time! It was her triumph, not his.

Alas! She did not know what to say. She did not even know how to say it. She therefore shook her head angrily.

"Speech!" shouted the crowd, twice as vehemently as before. They always want to hear what you don't wish to say.

The cameras were clicking away madly. They sounded like the telegraph-room of a national convention.

Five-dozen healthy young persons began chanting, rhythmically:

"Speech! Speech! Speech!—speech!—speech!"

Grace thought they were saying:

"His Peach! His Peach! His Peach! Peach! Peach!"

She hotly resented the intimation of H.R.'s ownership, but the sincerity of the tribute paralyzed her. The sandwich-man had been amiably told by Andrew Barrett, "Hold the pose, you slob!" and did so. His immobility was most impressive. His shield dazzled Grace. She recalled, in a flash, Geraldine Farrar.

She bowed to the sandwich, then to right and left, kissed her hand to the crowd of voters and not-yet voters, and ran blushing into the house.

The storm of applause broke loose. The very house rocked drunkenly as the sound-waves dashed themselves against the faÇade.

The strenuous, nerve-racking life of New York compelled the crowd to linger for an hour. It was not until they began to break off bits of the bronze railing and chip souvenirs from the portico columns that the Goodchilds' butler sent a hurry call for the police.

The lieutenant's official version was cold and formal.