hose expressive blue-gray eyes of hers; her delicate
nostrils were quivering. I hastened to introduce Ball to her. Her impulse
to fly passed; her lifelong training in doing the conventional thing
asserted itself. She lowered her head again, murmured an inaudible
acknowledgment of Joe's greeting.

"Your wife is at home?" said I. If one was at home in the evening, the
other was also, and both were always there, unless they were at some
theater--except on Sunday night, when they dined at Sherry's, because many
fashionable people did it. They had no friends and few acquaintances.
In their humbler and happy days they had had many friends, but had lost
them when they moved away from Brooklyn and went to live, like uneasy,
out-of-place visitors, in their grand house, pretending to be what they
longed to be, longing to be what they pretended to be, and as discontented
as they deserved.

"Oh, yes, Mrs. B.'s at home," Joe answered. "I guess she and Alva
were--about to go to bed." Alva was their one child. She had been
christened Malvina, after Joe's mother; but when the Balls "blossomed out"
they renamed her Alva, which they somehow had got the impression was
"smarter."

At Joe's blundering confession that the females of the family were in no
condition to receive, Anita said to me in a low voice: "Let us go."

I pretended not to hear. "Rout 'em out," said I to Joe. "Then, take my
electric and bring the nearest parson. There's going to be a wedding--right
here." And I looked round the long salon, with everything draped for the
summer departure. Joe whisked the cover off one chair, his man took off
another. "I'll have the women-folks down in two minutes," he cried. Then to
the man: "Get a move on you, Billy. Stir 'em up in the kitchen. Do the best
you can about supper--and put a lot of champagne on the ice. That's the
main thing at a wedding."

Anita had seated herself listlessly in one of the uncovered chairs. The
wrap slipped back from her shoulders and--how proud I was of her! Joe
gazed, took advantage of her not looking up to slap me on the back and to
jerk his head in enthusiastic approval. Then he, too, disappeared.

A wait followed, during which we could hear, through the silence, excited
undertones from the upper floors. The words were indistinct until Joe's
heavy voice sent down to us an angry "No damn nonsense, I tell you. Allie's
got to come, too. She's not such a fool as you think. Bad example--bosh!"

Anita star