. The gas whined and rasped above their
heads, the air grew close and heavy with smoke. Ash-trays were loaded
with the stumps and ashes of cigars; sticky beer glasses ringed the
bare table. But Martie stuck to her post. At one o'clock it would all
be over, and Wallace, carrying a glass of whisky-and-soda to his room,
would be undressing between violent yawns and amused recollections.

"Some of that comes to me, Wallie. I have the rent coming this week!"

"Sure. Take all you want, old girl. You're tired, aren't you?"

"Tired and cold." Martie's circulation was not good now, and she knew
why. Her meals had lost their interest, and sometimes even Teddy's
claims were neglected. She was sleepy, tired, heavy all the time. "When
I see a spoon lying on the dining-room floor, and realize that it will
lie there until I pick it up I could scream!" she told Wallace.

"It's a shame, poor old girl!"

"Oh, no--it's all right." She would blink back the tears. "I'm not
sorry!"

But she was sorry and afraid. She resented Wallace's easy sympathy,
resented the doctor's advice to rest, not to worry, his mild
observation that a good deal of discomfort was inevitable.

Early in the new year she began to agitate the question of a dinner to
the Drydens. Wallace, who had taken a fancy to Adele, agreed lazily to
endure John's company, which he did not enjoy, for one evening. But he
obstinately overruled Martie on the subject of a dinner at home.

"Nix," said Wallace flatly. "I won't have my wife cooking for anybody!"

"But Wallace--just grape-fruit and broilers and a salad! And they'll
come out and help cook it. You don't know how informally we did things
at Grandma's!"

"Well, you're not doing things informally now. It would be different if
you had a couple of servants!"

"But it may be years before we have a couple of servants. Aren't we
ever going to entertain, until then?"

"I don't know anything about that. But I tell you I won't have them
thinking that we're hard up. I'll take them to a restaurant somewhere,
and show that little boob a square meal!"

He finally selected an oppressively magnificent restaurant where a
dollar-and-a-half table-d'hote dinner was served.

"But I'd like to blow them to a real dinner!" he regretted.

"Oh, Wallace, I'm not trying to impress them! We'll have more than
enough to eat, and music, and a talk. Then we can break up at about
ten, and we'll have done the decent thing!"

The four were to me