"I saw you the minute I came into the place," Kitty chirped loudly. "And I wondered right away who you were."
At this, Claire perceived that in one detail, at least, even the grace of God had not granted to twenty-five any superiority over eighteen. Kitty was beginning with Walter just as her father and Claire had begun with each other. "Good heavens!" the girl almost twenty-five said to herself. "Did I do it like this at eighteen? Am I still doing only the same things I did then—endlessly repeating them as long as I can stay in the ring?" And, dismayed, she wondered if there was any real difference between her present situation with Mr. Sherman Peale and Kitty's with Walter Rackbridge. Hadn't Kitty probably asked herself, at first sight of Walter, "Is this He?" She indeed probably had! And just as Claire was already certain that if she chose she could make Mr. Peale take any amount of interest in her she thought desirable, wasn't the eighteen-year-old girl capable of a like certainty in regard to Walter? "Not that Walter would," Claire thought; and then, hearing his response to Kitty's overture, she had another surprise.
"I'm glad you wondered," he said gravely. "I
