In the mean time Grace was in Philadelphia. She had gone there for sundry reasons. The telephone calls told on her nerves. Mr. Goodchild had to install a new one, the number of which was not printed in the Directory but confided to intimate friends. Requests for autographs, interviews, money, food, advice, name of soap habitually used, permission to name massage ointments and face lotions after her, contributions to magazines, and ten thousand other things had been coming in by mail or were made in person by friends and strangers until Grace, in desperation, decided to go on a visit to Philadelphia. She craved peace.

Ruth Fiddle had long urged her to come. Grace had agreed to be one of her bridesmaids in June and Ruth naturally wished to discuss marriage, generally and particularly.

Ruth delightedly met Grace at the station. Two young men were with her. One was her fiancÉ. The other was a very nice chap who had blood, brains, and boodle. His ancestors had been William Penn's grandfather's landlords in Bristol, England, and he himself had once written a story which he had sent to the Saturday Evening Post. His father was in coal, railroads, and fire insurance.

They decided to adjourn to the Fairview-Hartford for luncheon. Before so doing they talked.

Ruth asked a thousand excited questions about the Hunger Feast, fame, and the Rutgers Roll. Grace answered, and then confided to Ruth her iron resolve never to marry H.R. She admitted that he was as great as the papers said, even greater, and, besides, good-looking. But her determination was inflexible.

Ruth, to show she approved, told Grace that Monty—the writer—was her fiancÉ's chum and African hunting-companion. Monty himself told Miss Goodchild that there was a good story in the whole affair. In fact, two stories. In both of them the heroine—he looked at her and nodded his head convincingly. "Drawn from life," he added. "Of course I'll have to know you—I mean, the heroine—better. But don't you think she'd make a great one?"

She wasn't thrilled a bit. She was not even politely interested. What was such talk, Grace impartially asked herself, to one who had been madly cheered by thousands?

Still, he was a nice boy, not so consciously clever as New-Yorkers who chose to regard themselves as vaudeville wits.

Finally they got into the waiting motor and went to the Fairview-Hartford, where the eating is better than in any New York hotel.

As they were about to enter the dining-room Grace Goodchild put on her restaurant look of utter unconsciousness and stone deafness and blindness, which had grown into a habit since she became famous.

She entered the dining-room ahead of the others, as usual. She took nine steps before she stopped short. Her face went pale.

Nobody had stopped eating!

Nobody had turned around to stare!

Nobody had stage-whispered, "There she is!"

No woman had said, "Do you think she is as beautiful as the newspapers try to make out?"

Not one imbecile male look; not one feminine sneer! Nothing! No fame!

"What's the matter?" asked Monty in alarm.

Grace felt an overwhelming desire to stand there until the people looked, even if it took a year.

As the century-long seconds passed she barely could resist the impulse to shout, "Fire!"

"Anything wrong?" whispered Monty, with real concern.

"N-no-nothing!" she stammered, and followed Ruth, who had passed her, unnoticing.

Her color returned as wrath dispelled amazement.

For the first time since H.R. began to woo her in public places with sandwiches Grace Goodchild actually had to eat food in a restaurant. In New York famous people don't go to restaurants to eat.

She was distraite throughout the luncheon. She thought Monty was an ass.

And the other feeding beasts must have read the New York papers! There was absolutely no excuse.

In the evening the same thing happened. That is, nothing happened. The Fiddles' friends tried to be particularly nice to her by talking of the opera, novels, the dancing-craze, the resurgence of the Republican party, and cubism. It only made it worse. And not one knew the Rutgers Roll!

The next day Ruth and the young men took her to the Philadelphia Country Club. Same thing! And later to a dance at the Fitz-Marlton. Ditto!

Her good looks, her gowns, and her nice manners made a very favorable impression on all of Ruth's friends, male and female, young and old. Hang 'em, that's all it did!

It was like Lucullus being asked to eat sanitary biscuits.

She had wanted peace. But not in a burial crypt. On the fourth day of extinction she said to Ruth after breakfast:

"My dear, I must return to New York!"

"Oh no! Grace, darling, I've accepted seventeen—"

"I must, Ruth. I simply must!"

"But Monty is coming at one to take us to his father's—"

Grace felt like saying that Monty could take himself to Hades or to Atlantic City. But she merely shook her head. She dared not trust herself to speak. Ruth appealed to her mother. But Mrs. Fiddle shrugged her shoulders and said: "No use! New York!" She herself was a Van Duzen.

And so Grace Goodchild returned home, five days before she was expected.

"I couldn't stand it, mother," she explained, almost tearfully.

"Very well," said Mrs. Goodchild.

What else can a mother say in New York? And isn't it right to stand by your own flesh and blood?

Grace hesitated, full of perplexities and unformulated doubts and an exasperating sense of indecision. She felt like opening the book of her soul to other eyes. To hear advice or, at least, opinions.

"I want to have a heart-to-heart talk with you, mother," said Grace, hesitatingly. Then she apologized, self-defensively. "It concerns my future, dear."

"Yes, darling," said Mrs. Goodchild, absently. "I don't think. I'd like it quite like Celestine's— Grace, love, will you run over to Raquin's spring exhibition at the Fitz-Marlton and look at it? It is next to the black that Mrs. Vandergilt liked. I have an appointment with Celestine—"

Grace knew that the selection of a husband could wait, for fashions in that line do not change so quickly as in skirts. She dutifully said, "I will!" She also had her eye on one.

Before going to Raquin's display she stopped at Oldman's.

The store flunky opened the door of her motor and smiled happily when he saw who it was. She was made subtly conscious that he was dying to announce her name to the world at the top of his enthusiastic voice. Life in New York had its compensations, after all.

She entered. The shop-girls whispered to the customers on whom they were waiting. The customers turned quickly and stared at Grace Goodchild.

"She often comes here!" she heard the pretty little thing in charge of seventy-two glove-boxes say proudly to a client.

The girl who waited on Grace was a stranger. Nevertheless, when Grace told her "I'll take these!" the girl said, "Very well, Miss Goodchild."

"Oh!" gasped Grace. "You know me?"

"What d'ye t'ink I am?" said the girl, indignantly. "Say, it was great, Miss Goodchild!"

The worship in the girl's eyes kept the language from being offensive.

"Thank you!"

"I hope you'll be very happy, Miss Goodchild," said the girl, and blushed. "Oh, I didn't mean to be—I—I couldn't help wishing it, Miss Goodchild!"

"I'm sure I'm very grateful for your good wishes," Grace told her, graciously.

The child's—age twenty-four—eyes filled with tears. As Grace walked away, Mayme's lips moved raptly. She was memorizing dem woids.

On her way out Grace went through the same craning of necks, the same vivid curiosity, the same half-audible murmurs, the same spitefulness in the eyes of the women who, though rich, were not famous. Everybody is so disgustingly rich nowadays that society had begun to applaud such remarks as, "I've had to give up one of my motors," or, "Jim says he won't put the Mermaid in commission this year; simply can't afford it."

At Raquin's wonderful exhibition of models Grace saw exactly what she wished to see. It would be worthy of her and of her throat. One who is photographed many times a week has to have gowns; not to have them is almost immoral. Grace was so concerned with doing her duty toward the public that she forgot that she had come to see the third one, next to Mrs. Vandergilt's black. She was nearly half-way home before she remembered what her mother had asked her to do.

Grace went back to the Fitz-Marlton. Dress was a public service. Mrs. Goodchild's clothes must tell the public whose mother she was.

She told the chauffeur "Home," and began to think.

Pleasure could be made a duty. Blessed indeed is she in whose mind, as in a vast cathedral, pleasure and duty solemnly contract nuptials.

This beautiful figure of speech in turn made her think of marriage. If she married Reggie or Mr. Watson or Percival or one of the others, what would her married life be? What?

One long visit to Philadelphia!

"I could kill him!" she said to the flower-holder, frowning fiercely. Happening to catch a glimpse of herself in the mirror for that purpose provided in an town cars, Grace smoothed her brow and smiled. A man would have required slathers of flattery to dispel ill-humor. With a woman, the truth is enough. A mirror does not lie. Providence is more than kind to them; even automatic.

If she wouldn't marry Reggie or the others and did marry H.R.— But how could she?

She was an imaginative American girl with a sunshiny soul and much vitality who lived in New York. She thought of her marriage to H.R. She thought of the newspapers! The mound of clippings that instantly loomed before her made her gasp.

What wouldn't the newspapers do when she married H.R., especially if H.R., prompted by love, really made an effort?

She was forced to admit that he was a remarkable man!

"Papa," she said aloud, "will never consent!"

Papa's life had been made miserable by H.R. Indeed, the only thing that reconciled him to the ungrateful task of living was the steady growth of the bank's deposits. It was due, Mr. Goodchild often declared, to his management. But he couldn't speak about H.R. without profanity.

Parental opposition was not everything. Marriage was a serious thing.