with the diamond bar on
her breast. "Howat," she said, "to-morrow's Saturday, and I've asked two
people out until Sunday night. Eliza Provost and a young man. Do you
mind?"

"Tell Rudolph," he replied. It was not until after dinner, when they
were playing sniff, that he realized that she omitted the young man's
name. He intended to ask it, but, his mind and hand hovering over an
ivory domino, he forgot. "Twenty," he announced, reaching for the
scoring pad. "Oh, hell, Howat!" she protested. "That's the game,
almost." She emptied her coffee cup, and speculatively fingered one of
the thin cigars in the box at his hand. "It's the customary thing in
Peru," she observed, pinching the end from the cigar and lighting it. He
watched her absently, veiled in the fragrant, bluish smoke.
Automatically his thoughts returned to the women that, at a breath of
scandal, had refused to attend the dinner to Patti. So much changed; the
years fled like birds in a mist.

"I feel like a politician," she told him. "Eliza Provost would pat me on
the back. She's talking from a soap box on the street corners now,
winging men for such trifles as forced birth. I'm fond of Eliza; she's
got a splendid crust. I wish you'd get excited about my rights; but your
interest really goes no further than a hat from Camille Marchais. You
are deleterious, Howat. Isn't that a lovely word! Which was the first
double?" He blocked and won the game. "Fifty-five," she announced; "and
ninety-five before. I owe you a dollar and a half."

She paid the debt promptly from a flexible gold mesh bag on the table;
then stooped and wandered among his books. Howat Penny turned to
yesterday's _Evening Post_, and Mariana settled beyond the lamp. Outside
the locusts were desperately shrill, and the heavy ticking of an old
clock grew audible. "I don't like George Moore!" she exclaimed. He
raised surprised, inquiring eyebrows. "He is such a taster," she added,
but particularized no more. She sat, with the scarlet bound book clouded
in the white chiffon of her lap, gazing at the wall. Her lips were
parted, and a brighter colour rose in her cheeks. Her attitude, her
expression, vaguely disturbed him; he had never seen her more warmly,
dangerously, alive. A new reluctance stopped the question forming in
his mind; she seemed to have retreated from him. "Moore is a very great
artist," he said instead.

"That's little to me," she replied flippantly, rising. "I think I'll go
up; and I a