himself bodily into society. It went easily, and there could
be only one asset arising from it in the end--his own sense of disgust.

"So glad to see you, Monty," greeted Mrs. Dan, glowingly, coming in
with a rush. "Come upstairs and I'll give you some tea and a cigarette.
I'm not at home to anybody."

"That's very good of you, Mrs. Dan," said he, as they mounted the
stairs. "I don't know what I'd do without your help." He was thinking
how pretty she was.

"You'd be richer, at any rate," turning to smile upon him from the
upper landing. "I was in tears half the night, Monty, over that glass
screen," she said, after finding a comfortable place among the cushions
of a divan. Brewster dropped into a roomy, lazy chair in front of her
and handed her a cigarette, as he responded carelessly:

"It amounted to nothing. Of course, it was very annoying that it should
happen while the guests were still there." Then he added, gravely: "In
strict confidence, I had planned to have it fall just as we were
pushing back our chairs, but the confounded thing disappointed me.
That's the trouble with these automatic climaxes; they usually hang
fire. It was to have been a sort of Fall of Babylon effect, you know."

"Splendid! But like Babylon, it fell at the wrong time."

For a lively quarter of an hour they discussed people about town,
liberally approving the slandered and denouncing the slanderers. A
still busier quarter of an hour ensued when together they made up the
list of dinner guests. He moved a little writing-table up to the divan,
and she looked on eagerly while he wrote down the names she suggested
after many puckerings of her fair, aristocratic brow, and then drew
lines through them when she changed her mind. Mrs. DeMille handled her
people without gloves in making up Monty's lists. The dinners were not
hers, and she could afford to do as she pleased with his; he was broad
and tall and she was not slow to see that he was indifferent. He did
not care who the guests were, or how they came; he merely wished to
make sure of their presence. His only blunder was the rather diffident
recommendation that Barbara Drew be asked again. If he observed that
Mrs. Dan's head sank a little closer to the paper, he attached no
importance to the movement; he could not see that her eyes grew narrow,
and he paid no attention to the little catch in her breath.

"Wouldn't that be a little--just a little pronounced?" she asked,
lightly enough.