p, dainty and sweet in her pink gown, and played her
violin, with the gaslight shining down into her brown eyes, and her
lace sleeve slipping back and forth over her white arm as the bow
whipped to and fro.

Rodney did not leave her side, except for a dance with Martie and one
with Sally. After a while he and Rose went out to sit on the stairs.
Alvah grew noisy and familiar, and Martie did not know quite how to
meet his hilarity, although she tried. She was afraid the echoes of his
wild laugh would greet her father's ears, if he had come in and was
upstairs, and that Pa might do something awful.

The evening wore on. Lydia looked tired, and Sally was absolutely mute,
listening politely to Robert Archer's slow, uninteresting narration of
the purchase of the Hospital site. Martie felt as if she had been in
this dreadful gaslight forever; she watched the clock.

At eleven they all went out to the dining room, and here the first real
evidences of pleasure might be seen on the faces of the guests. Now
Lydia, too, was in her favourite element, superintending coffee cups,
while Sally, alert again, cut the layer cakes. The table looked
charming and the sandwiches and coffee, cream and olives, were swiftly
put in circulation. Under the heartening rattle of cutlery and china
every one talked, the air was scented with coffee, the room so warm
that two windows by general consent were opened to the cool night.

Martie took her share of the duties of hospitality as if in an
oppressive dream. Rodney sat beside her, and Rose on his other side. To
an outsider Martie might have seemed her chattering self, but she
knew--and Sally knew--that the knife was in her heart. She said
good-night to Rodney brightly, and kissed Rose. Rodney was to take Rose
home because, as she explained to Martie in an aside, it was almost on
his way, and it seemed a shame to take Dr. Tate so far.

"I've been scolding Rod terribly; those boys had highballs or something
before they came here," Rose said, puckering her lips and shaking her
head as she carefully pinned a scarf over her pretty hair. "So silly!
That's what we were talking about on the stairs."

She tripped away on Rodney's arm. Alvah, complaining of a splitting
head, went off alone. Somehow the others filtered away; Angela Baxter,
who was to spend the night with Lydia, piled the last of the dishes
with Lydia in the kitchen. Sally, silent and yawning, sank into an
armchair by the dying fire. Marti