"Oh! Thank you, Mr. Price!" said Audrey. The music was so fresh and glossy
and luscious to the eye that it was like a gift of fruit.

"That'll do, then, Price," said Mr. Gilman. "Don't forget about those
things for to-night, will you?"

"No, sir. I have a note of all of them."

Mr. Price bowed and turned away, assuming his perfect hat. As he approached
the door Tommy intercepted him; and said something to him in a low voice,
to which he uncomfortably mumbled a reply. As they had admittedly been
friends in Mr. Price's artistic days, exception could not be taken to this
colloquy. Nevertheless Audrey, being as suspicious as a real widow,
regarded it ill, thinking all manner of things. And when Tommy, humming,
came back to her seat on Mr. Gilman's left hand, Audrey thought: "And why,
after all, should she be on his left hand? It is of course proper that I
should be on his right, but why should Tommy be on his left? Why not Madame
Piriac or Miss Ingate?"

"And what am _I_ going to do this afternoon?" demanded Miss Ingate,
lengthening the space between her nose and her upper lip, and turning down
the corners of her lower lip.

"You have to try that new dress on, Winnie," said Audrey rather
reprovingly.

"Alone? Me go alone there? I wouldn't do it. It's not respectable the way
they look at you and add you up and question you in those trying-on rooms,
when they've _got_ you."

"Well, take Elise with you."

"Me take Elise? I won't do it, not unless I could keep her mouth full of
pins all the time. Whenever we're alone, and her mouth isn't full of pins,
she always talks to me as if I was an actress. And I'm not."

"Well, then," said Miss Nickall kindly, "come with me and Tommy. We haven't
anything to do, and I'm taking Tommy to see Jane Foley. Jane would love to
see you."

"She might," replied Miss Ingate. "Oh! She might. But I think I'll walk
across to the hotel and just go to bed and sleep it off."

"Sleep what off?" asked Tommy, with necklace rattling and orchidaceous eyes
glittering.

"Oh! Everything! Everything!" shrieked Miss Ingate.

There was one other customer left in the restaurant, a solitary fair, fat
man, and as Mr. Gilman's party was leaving, Audrey last, this solitary
fair, fat man caught her eye, bowed, and rose. It was Mr. Cowl, secretary
of the National Reformation Society. He greeted her with the assurance of
an old and valued friend, and he called her neither Miss nor Mrs.; he
called her no