Eric could only bow stiffly and offer his arm, while John walked
slowly beside them, his face thoughtful, his gay spirits gone. During
dinner, however, he tried to revive the lagging conversation. Suzanne
spoke in a staccato voice and her choice of words seemed strange to
Eric, almost as though she were translating her own thoughts from a
foreign tongue.

And finally Suzanne's promised dessert came, cool and tempting in its
silver dishes. Eric saw a chance to make the talk more natural. He
said, gayly, "Johnny, your wife's a chef, a famous pastry chef. Behold
the work of her hands! What did you say it was, Suzanne?"

"This? Oh--I do not know what it is called."

"But this afternoon as you were leaving the kitchen--didn't you say it
was almond something or other?"

She shook her head, smiling. "Perhaps it is. I wouldn't know."

The maid had placed the tray with the three silver dishes of dessert
before Suzanne, that she might put on them the final sprinkling of
delicate silver candies. Daintily, Suzanne sifted the shining bubbles
over the fluff of cream. Eric, watching her, felt very little surprize
when he saw Suzanne, with almost legerdemain deftness, sift upon one
dish a film of pinkish powder which could not be detected after it lay
on the pink cream.

Waiting, he knew not for what moment, he watched Suzanne pass the
silver dishes herself, saw her offer the one with the powdered top to
John. And it was then that their attention was attracted by the
entrance of the maltese kitten. So tiny it was, so brave in its
careening totter across the shiny floor, small tail hoisted like a
sail, that John and Eric laughed aloud.

Suzanne merely glanced down at the little creature and turned away.
The kitten, however, came to her chair, put up a tiny paw and caught
its curved claws in the fragile stuff of Suzanne's gown. Instantly,
her face became distorted with rage and she kicked out at the kitten,
savagely, and with set lips. It seemed to Eric that the amethysts on
the Medici boots winked wickedly in the light of the big chandelier.

The kitten was flung some ten feet away, and lay in a small, panting
heap.

John sprang up. "Suzanne! How could you?" He took the kitten in his
arms and soothed it.

"Why its heart's beating like a trip-hammer," he said. "I don't
understand, Suzanne----"

As the kitten grew quiet, he took a large rose-leaf from the
table-flowers and spread it with a heaping spoonful of the pink cr