Lady Luce came forward to him with both hands extended; and the "Drake,
thank God!" was perhaps as genuinely a devout an expression as she had
ever uttered. For it seemed to her that Providence had especially
intervened in her behalf and sent him to her side. We all of us have an
idea that Providence is more interested in us than in other persons.

Drake stood and looked at her for an instant with the same surprise
which had assailed him when he recognized her; then he took the small,
exquisitely gloved hands. How could he refuse them? As he had said, the
members of their set could not be strangers, though two of them had been
lovers and one had been jilted. They had to meet as friends or
acquaintances, as individuals of a community, which, living for
pleasure, could not be bored by quarrels and estrangements.

In the "smart" set a man lives not for himself alone, but for the other
men with whom he plays and shoots and jokes and drinks; for the women
with whom he drives and rides and dances. He must sink personal feeling,
likes and dislikes, or the social ship which he joins as one of the
crew, the ship which can sail only on smooth and sunlit waves, will
founder. So Drake took her hands and smiled a greeting at her.

"Why! To find you here! What are you doing here, Drake?" she said.