fed on, and the banquet ran long. Half an hour
passed before the door from Mrs. Heth's bedroom opened and Carlisle
appeared. However, she looked worth waiting for. She shimmered a moment
from the threshold, and the two in the sitting-room thought together
that they had never seen her so radiantly lovely.

"I made her!" thought Mrs. Heth.

"Mine!" thought Canning.

And Cally thought, her eyes upon her lover: "_Me afraid!_..."

"My dear Cally! Really, I can say nothing for you but better late than
never," said mamma.

"Salutations!" said Hugo, rising. "And by Jove! What a perfectly
stunning dress!"

"Oh, do you like it?" said Carlisle, trailing forward, her eyes shining.
"Then you won't scold, will you, if my watch _was_ a trifle slow! And I
should have been ready hours ago, even at that, but for Flora's
over-staying at her uncle's. Tell Mr. Canning, Flora, wasn't it all
your fault?"

And Flora, having followed her young mistress in with the
carriage-cloak, giggled into her hand as at a royal jest and said yas'm,
it certny was....

In holiday vein the trio departed from the suite, dropped sixteen
stories in the lift, and presently came by taxicab to the Cafe des
Ambassadeurs, where had taken place the memorable dinner for two, just
two months ago to a night....

Here all was glittering and gay. The Ambassadeurs, pending the arrival
of something newer, was on the pinnacle of expensive popularity. At this
hour everything was in fullest swing, and the impressive looking
major-domo was shaking his head without hope to arriving applicants who
had not ordered a table beforehand, as Hugo had done by messenger.

The Heth ladies turned into the cloak-room to remove their wraps. The
air of vivacity pervading the place, or possibly it was her daughter's
staccato liveliness, entered the blood of Mrs. Heth: she was imperious
with the ladies' maid who assisted with the unwrapping. Carlisle,
strolling about as she unbuttoned her gloves, came to the elaborate
screen which sheltered the doorway and glanced out. Directly opposite,
over the brilliant corridor, her gaze fell upon the glass and
yellow-wood of a long-distance telephone booth.

Then she caught sight of Hugo, and smiled at him, and at the same moment
mamma's voice said at her elbow:

"There's Hugo, waiting.... Are you ready?"

"And waiting, too," said Carlisle.

They emerged from the ladies' bower into the stir of the antechamber.
Met halfway by their escort,