over the
financial, domestic and romantic troubles of her friends; she sat up till
the small hours, talking to them like a schoolgirl; during the height of
their careers she organized plots for their assistance; and even when
their stars were plainly on the decline, she would often ask them to
lunch, if she happened to be alone.

Many people, we know, are prone to make friends with the rich and great.
Mrs. Ussher's genius consisted in having made friends with them before
they were either. When you hurried to her with some account of a newly
discovered treasure--a beauty or a conversable young man--she would
always say: "Oh, yes, I crossed with her two years ago," or "Isn't he a
dear?--he was once in Jack's office." The strange thing was these
statements were always true; the subjects of them confessed with tears
that "dear Mrs. Ussher" or "darling Laura" was the kindest friend they
had ever had.

Her house party was therefore likely to be notable.

First, there was of course Mrs. Almar--of course without her husband.
There is only one thing, or perhaps two, to be said for Nancy Almar--that
she was very handsome and that she was not a hypocrite, no more than a
pirate is a hypocrite who comes aboard with his cutlass in his teeth.
Mrs. Almar's cutlass was always in her teeth, when it was not in
somebody's vitals.

She had smooth, jet-black hair, done close to her pretty head, a clear
white-and-vermilion complexion, and a good figure, not too tall. She said
little, but everything she did say, she most poignantly meant. If, while
you were talking to her, she suddenly cried out: "Ah, that's really
good!" there was no doubt you had had the good fortune to amuse her;
while if she yawned and left you in the midst of a sentence there was no
question that she was bored.

She hated her husband--not for the conventional reason that she had
married him. She hated him because he was a hypocrite, because he was
always placating and temporizing.

For instance, he had said to her as she was about to start for the
Usshers':

"I hope you'll explain to them why I could not come."

There had never been the least question of Mr. Almar's coming, and she
turned slowly and looked at him as she asked:

"You mean that I would not have gone if you had?"

He did not seem annoyed.

"No," he said, "that I'm called South on business."

"I shan't tell them that," she said, slowly wrapping her furs about her
throat; and then foreseeing a