"Well, but you will, my dear. You don't suppose every young writer who's introduced to you in the course of the winter will imagine you're sampling him for the Pulsifer Prize?"

"How absurd, Halo! When of course it's all in the hands of the committee… . But I do so want to preserve my complete serenity, my utter detachment… ." Mrs. Pulsifer flung the words after her in a series of staccato cries.

Halo laughed, and moved through the groups of guests scattered about her library to the corner where Vance Weston, his back to the company, stood in absorbed contemplation of the bookshelves. Until he had entered the room a few minutes earlier she had not seen him since he had come to borrow her Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, and now, in the noise and sparkle of her first evening party for the New Hour, he had become once more an exterior, episodical figure, not the being whose soul had touched hers that other evening. She even reflected, as she approached him: "He's shorter than I remembered; his shoulders are too heavy … he gets into fights about women… ." as if retouching an idealized portrait abruptly confronted with the reality.

"Vance," she said, and he turned with a start of surprise, as though he had imagined himself alone. Halo smiled: "This isn't the Willows, you know—I mean," she hurried on, fearing he might misinterpret the allusion, "you're at a party, and lots of the people here want to know you; first of all, Mrs. Pulsifer."

"Mrs. Pulsifer—?" he echoed, his eyes coming back from a long way off and resting on his hostess in slow recognition.

"The prize-giver. Over there, in the gold-coloured dress. Come—poor Jet's not alarming; she's alarmed."

"Alarmed?"

Halo slipped her arm through his. "Frightfully shy, really. Isn't it funny? She's in terror lest every author who's introduced to her should ask for the prize—yet she wants them all introduced!"

"But isn't the prize given by a committee?"

"Yes. Only she likes to look the candidates over. Come!"

It amused her to introduce Vance to people. It was the first time she had seen him in a worldly setting, and she was interested in watching the effect he produced—especially the effect on Mrs. Pulsifer. On the whole, giving parties for the New Hour might turn out to be great fun. She was only sorry that her young lion, in his evening clothes, looked unexpectedly heavy and common… .

Vance hung back. "What's she like?" he asked, as if his decision depended on that.

"Like? I don't know… ." Halo hesitated. "You see, she's not an actual person: she's a symptom. That's what Frenny and I call the people who are everything in turn. They catch things from another kind that we call germ-carriers, people who get every new literary and artistic disease and hand it on. But come: she's awfully nice, really."