Hermia Suydam by Gertrude Atherton — Read

She met Quintard next at one of Mrs. Dykman's _musicales_. That fashionable lady was fond of entertaining, and Hermia was delighted to pay the bills. If it pleased Mrs. Dykman to have her entertainments in her own house rather than in the mansion on Second Avenue, she should be gratified, and Winston never betrayed family secrets.

People were very glad to go to Mrs. Dykman's house. She never had any surprises for them, but they always went away feeling that her evening had been one of the successes of the season. In her palmier days she had done much entertaining, and seen a great deal of the world. She had been a beauty in her youth, and was still so handsome that people forgot to insult her by calling her "well preserved. " If her hair had turned gray, the world never found it out; she wore a dark-brown wig which no one but her maid had ever seen elsewhere than on her head; and her unfathomable gray eyes had not a wrinkle about them. She still carried her head with the air of one who has had much incense offered her, and, although her repose amounted to monotony, it was very impressive. She had grown stout, but every curve of her gowns, every arrangement of draperies, lied as gracefully and conclusively as a diplomatist.