Jeff’s been abroad for five or six years, and they say he’s tremendously sophisticated. I’m just dying to see him.”

“But who is he? Does he live around here? Not one of the Lymans, from the Lyman firm?”

“Sure, boy!” said Isabel. “He’s the Lyman himself, all there is left. Didn’t you know it? His father and his uncle are both dead. That’s why he’s come home. He’s to be the head of the firm now. He’s young, too, for such a position. But he’s been abroad a lot. That makes a difference. I’m simply crazy to see him and renew our acquaintance. Yes, he went abroad for the war, of course—was in aviation, won a lot of medals and things—and then he stayed over there, looking after the firm’s interests part of the time, traveling and studying. He’s a great bookworm, you know. But he’s stunningly handsome, if he hasn’t changed, and he’s no-end rich. My soul! He owns the whole business, and it’s been going ever since the ark, hasn’t it? He’s got a house in town right on the Avenue with a picture gallery in it; that house next to the Masonic Club, yes, that’s it, and an estate out beyond the township line on a hillside where you can see for miles, and a whole flock of automobiles and an army of servants and a seashore place up in New England with a wonderful garden right out on the beach almost, among the rocks. Oh, it’s perfectly darling. We motored past it last summer on our trip. I’d adore to live in it!”

“Gracious!” said Betty Bryson. “If he’s got all that, why does he come to a church social? I’m sure I wouldn’t bother to if I had all that.”

“Well, perhaps he won’t come,” said Isabel. “I’m sure I wouldn’t either. But they say he’s interested in the church because his father helped to found it, and he always comes when he’s home and there’s anything unusual going on. You know this is the minister’s twenty-fifth anniversary, and there’s just a chance he may come. I should think he’d be disillusioned, though, wouldn’t you? All these common people. Why some of them aren’t even dressed up decently!” Isabel lowered her voice and cast a covert glance about.

Marion somehow felt she was looking at her. She rose suddenly and made her swift way toward the kitchen. She would look up the woman who had asked her to come and say she would have to go home, that she was not feeling well or something. She simply could not go around among those dressed-up girls. She would drop something, surely, feeling like this. Oh, why had she been led to come to a scene like this? Why did they have things of this sort anyway? There was no worship in it, and what else could people want of it? How terrible those girls had been. Cruel and terrible. And Isabel Cresson, how she had changed and coarsened.