course, come down to supper, as a special table had been
prepared for me. I replied that it was not my custom.

"'But here it is different. With us you must feel perfect freedom.
Siegmund will never forgive me if you do not stay. After supper our car
will take you home.' She was overpowering. She had the manner of an
intimate and indulgent friend of long standing. She seemed to have come
to make me a visit. I could only get rid of her by telling her that I
must see Peppo at once, if she would be good enough to send him to me.
She did not come back, and I began to fear that I would actually be
dragged down to supper. It was as if I had been kidnapped. I felt like
_Gulliver_ among the giants. These people were all too--well, too much
what they were. No chill of manner could hold them off. I was
defenseless. I must get away. I ran to the top of the staircase and
looked down. There was that fool Peppo, beleaguered by a bevy of fair
women. They were simply looting him, and he was grinning like an idiot. I
gathered up my train, ran down, and made a dash at him, yanked him out of
that circle of rich contours, and dragged him by a limp cuff up the
stairs after me. I told him that I must escape from that house at once.
If he could get to the telephone, well and good; but if he couldn't get
past so many deep-breathing ladies, then he must break out of the front
door and hunt me a cab on foot. I felt as if I were about to be immured
within a harem.

"He had scarcely dashed off when the host called my name several times
outside the door. Then he knocked and walked in, uninvited. I told him
that I would be inflexible about supper. He must make my excuses to his
charming friends; any pretext he chose. He did not insist. He took up his
stand by the fireplace and began to talk; said rather intelligent things.
I did not drive him out; it was his own house, and he made himself
agreeable. After a time a deputation of his friends came down the hall,
somewhat boisterously, to say that supper could not be served until we
came down. Stein was still standing by the mantel, I remember. He
scattered them, without moving or speaking to them, by a portentous
look. There is something hideously forceful about him. He took a very
profound leave of me, and said he would order his car at once. In a
moment Peppo arrived, splashed to the ankles, and we made our escape
together.

"A week later Peppo came to me in a rage, with a paper called _The
Ameri