“Oh, that’s not the reason,” I said, determined to defend Miss Pride.

“Hush! Let me finish. But a pussy-cat wasn’t enough, and now she’s got you, and she intends to have the time of her life with you because you’re helpless. You’re dependent on her. No matter what gaffe you make, if you get drunk and use obscene words in front of Mrs. Frothingham, Aunt Lucy will find some way to keep you.”

“I am not property!” I cried, angry with Hopestill and at the same time perturbed.

“Well, dear, that’s beside the point. All of this is beside the point. I’ll have a drink if you’ll pour it for me, please, and tell you what isn’t beside the point.” I filled our two glasses. I was muzzy and out-of-sorts with this oblique diatribe. “What isn’t beside the point,” she continued, “is that all I’ve accomplished today, all I’ve accomplished in my whole life, is that I’ve transferred myself from one martinet to another.”

“You didn’t have to marry him.”

She got to her feet and glared at me. “I’m sure I don’t know why I’ve taken you into my confidence, and you can jolly well forget this. Now I’m going to dress.”

The crowd had thinned considerably when I went down. In the vestibule, I heard a woman remark, “I wouldn’t mind if my income were cut to fifteen thousand. I’d just go out to my farm for the whole year.” And another voice replied, “Of course it wouldn’t go hard with you, Augusta. Why, you have a fortune in your roses if you’d only do something about it.” Augusta, whom I immediately knew to be the aunt Philip had visited when he drove me to Wolfburg from Chichester, laughed heartily. “That’s what my nephew tells me, but he’s a pipe-dreamer. I’m so glad that at least one of his pipe-dreams has come true. Hope is the sweetest girl in Boston, I’ve always felt.”

“Wasn’t it strange,” said the Countess to Miss Pride, “that Mrs. Hornblower brought her present with her?”

“I didn’t know she did,” said Miss Pride. “It was peculiar enough of her to come in an evening dress.”

“That’s not all. She unwrapped it herself as well, and what do you suppose it was? A dozen perfectly horrid souvenir coffee spoons.”

“My dear!”

Hopestill was coming down the stairs and in her carefully composed face there was no sign of the fright and anger that had made her burst out to me in her room. She joined Philip at the door and they went out, sped on by the uproar of the guests who had lingered.