ra implored, revolted.

"Of course you won't be satisfied now with anything less than Banbury
or Newport. But you can't say I didn't warn you, Honora, that they are
a horrid, selfish, fast lot," Lily Dallam declared, and brushed her eyes
with her handkerchief. "I did love you."

"If you'll only be reasonable a moment, Lily,--" said Honora.

"Reasonable! I saw you with my own eyes. Five minutes after you left
me they all started for your house, and Lula Chandos said it was the
quickest cure of a headache she had ever seen."

"Lily," Honora began again, with exemplary patience, "when people invite
themselves to one's house, it's a little difficult to refuse them
hospitality, isn't it?"

"Invite themselves?"

"Yes," replied Honora. "If I weren't--fond of you, too, I shouldn't
make this explanation. I was tired. I never felt less like entertaining
strangers. They wanted to play bridge, there wasn't a quiet spot in
the Club where they could go. They knew I was on my way home, and they
suggested my house. That is how it happened."

Mrs. Dallam was silent a moment.

"May I have one of Howard's cigarettes?" she asked, and added, after
this modest wish had been supplied, "that's just like them. They're
willing to make use of anybody."

"I meant," said Honora, "to have gone to your house this morning and to
have explained how it happened."

Another brief silence, broken by Lily Dallam.

"Did you notice the skirt of that suit Abby Kame had on?", she asked.
"I'm sure she paid a fabulous price for it in Paris, and it's exactly
like one I ordered on Tuesday."

The details of the rest of this conversation may be omitted. That Honora
was forgiven, and Mrs. Dallam's spirits restored may be inferred from
her final remark.

"My dear, what do you think of Sid and Howard making twenty thousand
dollars apiece in Sassafras Copper? Isn't it too lovely! I'm having a
little architect make me plans for a conservatory. You know I've always
been dying for one--I don't see how I've lived all these years without
it."

Honora, after her friend had gone, sat down in one of the wicker chairs
on the porch. She had a very vague idea as to how much twenty thousand
dollars was, but she reflected that while they had lived in Rivington
Howard must have made many similar sums, of which she was unaware.
Gradually she began to realize, however, that her resentment of the
lack of confidence of her husband was by no means the only cause of the
f