"Well, keep it for that night. And you and Chris might----No, he'll want
to dine with Alice, and she'll want to see you in your new gown. I was
going to say that you might dine here, but you'd better not."

"I think Leslie and Acton are going to be asked to dine with us," Norma
said. "Aunt Alice said something about it!"

"Well," Annie agreed indifferently. "Ring that bell, Norma--I've got to
get up! Where are you girls going now?"

"Some of the girls are coming to my house for tea," Leslie answered,
listlessly. "I've got the car here. Come on, Norma!"

"But you're not driving, Kiddie?" her aunt asked, quickly.

Leslie, who neither looked nor felt well, raised half-resentful eyes.

"Oh, no, I'm not driving, and I'm lying in bed mornings, and I don't
play squash, or ride horseback, or go in for tennis!" she drawled, half
angrily. "I'm having a perfectly _lovely_ time! I wish Acton had a
little of it; he wouldn't be so pleased! Makes me so mad," grumbled
Leslie, as she wandered toward the door, busily buttoning her coat.
"Grandma crying with joy, and Aunt Alice goo-gooing at me, and
Acton----"

"Come, now, be a little sport, Leslie!" her aunt urged, affectionately,
with her arm about her. "It's rotten, of course, but after all, it does
mean a lot to the Liggetts----"

"Oh, now, don't _you_ begin!" Leslie protested, half-mollified, with her
parting nod. "Don't--for pity's sake!--talk about it," she added,
rudely, to Norma, as Norma began some consolatory murmur on the stairs.
But when they were before her own fire, waiting for the expected girls,
she made Norma a rather ungracious confidence.

"I don't want Aunt Alice or any one to know it, but if Acton Liggett
thinks I am going to let him make an absolute fool of me, he's
mistaken!" Leslie said, in a sort of smouldering resentment.

"What has Acton done?" Norma asked, flattered by the intimation of trust
and not inclined to be apprehensive. She had seen earlier differences
between the young married pair, and now, when Leslie was physically at a
disadvantage, she and Alice had agreed that it was not unnatural that
the young wife should grow exacting and fanciful.

"Acton is about the most selfish person I ever knew," Leslie said,
almost with a whimper. "Oh, yes, he is, Norma! You don't see it--but I
do! Chris knows it, too; I've heard Chris call him down a thousand times
for it! I am just boiling at Acton; I have been all day! He leaves
everything to me, ever