ighted
as well, not to say passed by the national board of censors."

"Do you mean to say that I'm to be the entire audience at the premiere
of this new model?"

"You are to be audience, critic, orchestra, box-holder, patron, and
'Diamond Jim' Brady. Now run along into your own office--won't you,
dear? I want to get out these letters." And she pressed the button
that summoned a stenographer.

T. A. Buck, resigned, admiring, and anticipatory, went.

Annie, the cook, was justified that evening in her bitter complaint.
Her excellent dinner received scant enough attention from these two.
They hurried through it like eager, bright-eyed school-children who
have been promised a treat. Two scarlet spots glowed in Emma's cheeks.
Buck's eyes, through the haze of his after-dinner cigar, were luminous.

"Now?"

"No; not yet. I want you to smoke your cigar and digest your dinner
and read your paper. I want you to twiddle your thumbs a little and
look at your watch. First-night curtains are always late in rising,
aren't they? Well!"

She turned on the full glare of the chandelier, turned it off, went
about flicking on the soft-shaded wall lights and the lamps.

"Turn your chair so that your back will be toward the door."

He turned it obediently.

Emma vanished.

From the direction of her bedroom there presently came the sounds of
dresser drawers hurriedly opened and shut with a bang, of a slipper
dropped on the hard-wood floor, a tune hummed in an absent-minded
absorption under the breath, an excited little laugh nervously stifled.
Buck, in his role of audience, began to clap impatiently and to stamp
with his feet on the floor.

"No gallery!" Emma called in from the hall. "Remember the
temperamental family on the floor below!" A silence--then: "I'm
coming. Shut your eyes and prepare to be jarred by the Buck
balloon-petticoat!"

There was a rustling of silks, a little rush to the center of the big
room, a breathless pause, a sharp snap of finger and thumb. Buck opened
his eyes.

He opened his eyes. Then he closed them and opened them again,
quickly, as we do, sometimes, when we are unwilling to believe that
which we see. What he beheld was this: A very pretty, very flushed,
very bright-eyed woman, her blond hair dressed quaintly after the
fashion of the early 'Sixties, her arms and shoulders bare, a pink-slip
with shoulder-straps in lieu of a bodice, and--he passed a bewildered
hand over his eyes a s