ely shoulder and the tawny silken bared which supported her
frock.

"I suppose you'll be going to Europe pretty soon again, won't you?" he
invited.

"I'd like awfully to run over to Rome for a few weeks."

"I suppose you see a lot of pictures and music and curios and everything
there."

"No, what I really go for is: there's a little trattoria on the Via
della Scrofa where you get the best fettuccine in the world."

"Oh, I--Yes. That must be nice to try that. Yes."

At a quarter to ten McKelvey discovered with profound regret that his
wife had a headache. He said blithely, as Babbitt helped him with his
coat, "We must lunch together some time, and talk over the old days."

When the others had labored out, at half-past ten, Babbitt turned to
his wife, pleading, "Charley said he had a corking time and we must
lunch--said they wanted to have us up to the house for dinner before
long."

She achieved, "Oh, it's just been one of those quiet evenings that are
often so much more enjoyable than noisy parties where everybody talks at
once and doesn't really settle down to-nice quiet enjoyment."

But from his cot on the sleeping-porch he heard her weeping, slowly,
without hope.

IV

For a month they watched the social columns, and waited for a return
dinner-invitation.

As the hosts of Sir Gerald Doak, the McKelveys were headlined all the
week after the Babbitts' dinner. Zenith ardently received Sir Gerald
(who had come to America to buy coal). The newspapers interviewed him
on prohibition, Ireland, unemployment, naval aviation, the rate of
exchange, tea-drinking versus whisky-drinking, the psychology of
American women, and daily life as lived by English county families. Sir
Gerald seemed to have heard of all those topics. The McKelveys gave him
a Singhalese dinner, and Miss Elnora Pearl Bates, society editor of the
Advocate-Times, rose to her highest lark-note. Babbitt read aloud at
breakfast-table:

'Twixt the original and Oriental decorations, the strange and delicious
food, and the personalities both of the distinguished guests, the
charming hostess and the noted host, never has Zenith seen a more
recherche affair than the Ceylon dinner-dance given last evening by Mr.
and Mrs. Charles McKelvey to Sir Gerald Doak. Methought as we--fortunate
one!--were privileged to view that fairy and foreign scene, nothing at
Monte Carlo or the choicest ambassadorial sets of foreign capitals could
be more lovely. It is not