en interest in kidneys, and as Claire glanced up with much
brightness at another arrival, Milt lost momentum, and found that there
was absolutely nothing in the world he could say to her.

He made a grateful farewell to the omelets and kidneys, and escaped.

He walked many miles that day, trying to remember how Claire looked.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE VICIOUSNESS OF NICE THINGS

"What did you think of my nice Daggett boy?" Claire demanded of Eva
Gilson, the moment bruncheon was over.

"Which one was---- Oh, the boy you met on the road? Why, really, I
didn't notice him particularly. I'd rather fancied from the way you
referred to him that he was awfully jolly and forceful, but rather
crude. But I didn't notice him at all. He seemed perfectly well-bred,
but slightly heavy."

"No, he isn't that---- He---- Why did you lead spades?" reflected
Claire.

They were in the drawing-room, resting after the tact and tumult of the
bruncheon. Claire had been here long enough now for the Gilsons to
forget her comfortably, and be affectionate and quarrelsome and natural,
and to admit by their worrying that even in their exalted social
position there were things to fuss about.

"I do think we ought to have invited Belle Torrens," fretted Mrs.
Gilson. "We've simply got to have her here soon."

Mr. Gilson speculated intensely, "But she's the dullest soul on earth,
and her husband spends all his spare time in trying to think up ways of
doing me dirt in business. Oh, by the way, did you get the water tap in
the blue room fixed? It's dripping all the time."

"No, I forgot it."

"Well, I _do_ wish you'd have it attended to. It simply drips all the
time."

"I know. I intended to 'phone the plumber---- Can't you 'phone him
tomorrow, from the office?"

"No, I haven't time to bother with it. But I do wish you would. It keeps
on dripping----"

"I know, it doesn't seem to stop. Well, you remind me of it in the
morning."

"I'm afraid I'll forget. You better make a note of it. If it keeps on
dripping that way, it's likely to injure something. And I do wish you'd
tell the Jap not to put so much parsley in the omelet. And I say, how
would an omelet be with a butter sauce over it?"

"Oh, no, I don't think so. An omelet ought to be nice and dry. Butter
makes it so greasy--besides, with the price of butter----"

"But there's a richness to butter---- You'd better make a note about the
tap dripping in the blue room right now, before