er husband was kindling a cigarette, and the match lit up the grin
with which he answered: "But, my dear, have I ever shown the slightest
symptom--?"

"Oh, rubbish! When a woman says: 'No clothes,' she means: 'Not the right
clothes.'"

He took a meditative puff. "Ah, you've been going over Ellie's finery
with her."

"Yes: all those trunks and trunks full. And she finds she's got nothing
for St. Moritz!"

"Of course," he murmured, drowsy with content, and manifesting but a
languid interest in the subject of Mrs. Vanderlyn's wardrobe.

"Only fancy--she very nearly decided to stop over for Nelson's arrival
next week, so that he might bring her two or three more trunkfuls from
Paris. But mercifully I've managed to persuade her that it would be
foolish to wait."

Susy felt a hardly perceptible shifting of her husband's lounging body,
and was aware, through all her watchful tentacles, of a widening of his
half-closed lids.

"You 'managed'--?" She fancied he paused on the word ironically. "But
why?"

"Why--what?"

"Why on earth should you try to prevent Ellie's waiting for Nelson, if
for once in her life she wants to?"

Susy, conscious of reddening suddenly, drew back as though the leap
of her tell-tale heart might have penetrated the blue flannel shoulder
against which she leaned.

"Really, dearest--!" she murmured; but with a sudden doggedness he
renewed his "Why?"

"Because she's in such a fever to get to St. Moritz--and in such a funk
lest the hotel shouldn't keep her rooms," Susy somewhat breathlessly
produced.

"Ah--I see." Nick paused again. "You're a devoted friend, aren't you!"

"What an odd question! There's hardly anyone I've reason to be more
devoted to than Ellie," his wife answered; and she felt his contrite
clasp on her hand.

"Darling! No; nor I--. Or more grateful to for leaving us alone in this
heaven."

Dimness had fallen on the waters, and her lifted lips met his bending
ones.

Trailing late into dinner that evening, Ellie announced that, after all,
she had decided it was safest to wait for Nelson.

"I should simply worry myself ill if I weren't sure of getting my
things," she said, in the tone of tender solicitude with which she
always discussed her own difficulties. "After all, people who deny
themselves everything do get warped and bitter, don't they?" she argued
plaintively, her lovely eyes wandering from one to the other of her
assembled friends.

Strefford remarked gravely