, if anybody is, YOU are, Bibbs! And
I don't wonder; you've done every bit of the work of it. You mustn't get
down sick again. I'm going to make you take a little brandy."

He let her have her own way, following her into the dining-room, and
was grateful when she brought him a tiny glass filled from one of the
decanters on the sideboard. Roscoe gloomily poured for himself a much
heavier libation in a larger glass; and the two men sat, while Sibyl
leaned against the sideboard, reviewing the episodes of the day and
recalling the names of the donors of flowers and wreaths. She pressed
Bibbs to remain longer when he rose to go, and then, as he persisted,
she went with him to the front door. He opened it, and she said:

"Bibbs, you were coming out of the Vertreeses' house when we met you.
How did you happen to be there?"

"I had only been to the door," he said. "Good night, Sibyl."

"Wait," she insisted. "We saw you coming out."

"I wasn't," he explained, moving to depart. "I'd just brought Miss
Vertrees home."

"What?" she cried.

"Yes," he said, and stepped out upon the porch, "that was it. Good
night, Sibyl."

"Wait!" she said, following him across the threshold. "How did that
happen? I thought you were going to wait while those men filled
the--the--" She paused, but moved nearer him insistently.

"I did wait. Miss Vertrees was there," he said, reluctantly. "She
had walked away for a while and didn't notice that the carriages were
leaving. When she came back the coupe waiting for me was the only one
left."

Sibyl regarded him with dilating eyes. She spoke with a slow
breathlessness. "And she drove home from Jim's funeral--with you!"

Without warning she burst into laughter, clapped her hand ineffectually
over her mouth, and ran back uproariously into the house, hurling the
door shut behind her.

CHAPTER XIII

Bibbs went home pondering. He did not understand why Sibyl had laughed.
The laughter itself had been spontaneous and beyond suspicion, but it
seemed to him that she had only affected the effort to suppress it and
that she wished it to be significant. Significant of what? And why had
she wished to impress upon him the fact of her overwhelming amusement?
He found no answer, but she had succeeded in disturbing him, and he
wished that he had not encountered her.

At home, uncles, aunts, and cousins from out of town were wandering
about the house, several mournfully admiring the "Bay of Naples," and