heater, and drunk more'n was good for her. Came out fair
squiffy--so's poor Mr. Dale, he felt quite disgraced."

She was not intoxicated in an ugly way; her speech, her movements were
unaffected, and yet the alcohol was troubling her brain. She looked
like a child who has been overexercised at a children's party, and who
comes home with eyebrows raised, eyes glowing and yet dull, and cheeks
very pale.

"Oh, dear, I _am_ tired," and she sat down on a chair by the chest of
drawers, and slowly took off her hat.

But she got up again and pushed Dale away, when he offered to help her
in undressing.

"No, certainly not. What are you thinking of?" and she began to hum
one of the pretty airs they had heard at the theater. "But, my word,
Will," and she stopped humming, and laughed foolishly, "I shan't be
sorry to get out of my things. It _is_ hot. This is the hottest night
we've had."

"Ah, you feel it. I've got acclim'tized."

He undressed rapidly, and lighting the briar pipe which he had not
cared to smoke in the genteel society at the theater, he lay on the
outside of the bed.

"Better now, old girl?"

"Yes. I'm all right, Will. Dear old boy--I'm all right."

Lying on the bed and immensely enjoying his delayed pipe, he watched
her. She wandered about the room, moved one of the two candles from
the mantel-shelf to the chest of drawers, put her blouse on the seat
of a chair and her skirt across the back of it. Then with slow
graceful movements she began to uncoil her hair, and as her smooth
white arms went up and down, the candlelight sent gigantic wavering
shadows across the wall-paper to the ceiling. Beneath one of her
elbows he could see right out through the open window into a dark
void. From his position on the bed nothing was visible out there, but
he could fill it if he cared to do so--the scattered dust of street
lamps below and the scattered dust of solar systems above.

Soon he puffed lazily, drowsily; then he nodded, and then the pipe
fell from his mouth.

"Hullo!" And muttering, he roused himself. "I must 'a' dropped off.
Might 'a' set the bed on fire."

Mavis, in her chemise and stockings now, with her hair down, was still
at the dressing-table. She did not turn when he spoke to her. While he
dozed she had fetched the other candle, and in the double light she
was staring intently at the reflection of her face in the
looking-glass.

Dale slipped softly off the bed, moved across to the dressing-tabl