ing the supper-tray.

'Put it down here,' said her husband, referring to the supper-tray, and
pointing to a little table which stood two legs off and two legs on the
hearth-rug.

'That apron suits you immensely,' murmured Woodruff, the friend of the
family, as he stretched his long limbs into the fender towards the
fire, farther even than the long limbs of Cheswardine. Each man
occupied an easy-chair on either side of the hearth; each was very
tall, and each was forty.

Mrs Cheswardine, with a whisk infinitely graceful, set the tray on the
table, took a seat behind it on a chair that looked like a toddling
grand-nephew of the arm-chairs, and nervously smoothed out the apron.

As a matter of fact, the apron did suit her immensely. It is
astounding, delicious, adorable, the effect of a natty little domestic
apron suddenly put on over an elaborate and costly frock, especially
when you can hear the rustle of a silk petticoat beneath, and more
especially when the apron is smoothed out by jewelled fingers. Every
man knows this. Every woman knows it. Mrs Cheswardine knew it. In such
matters Mrs Cheswardine knew exactly what she was about. She delighted,
when her husband brought Woodruff in late of a night, as he frequently
did after a turn at the club, to prepare with her own hands--the
servants being in bed--a little snack of supper for them. Tomato
sandwiches, for instance, miraculously thin, together with champagne or
Bass. The men preferred Bass, naturally, but if Mrs Cheswardine had a
fancy for a sip of champagne out of her husband's tumbler, Bass was not
forthcoming.

Tonight it was champagne.

Woodruff opened it, as he always did, and involuntarily poured out a
libation on the hearth, as he almost always did. Good-natured,
ungainly, long-suffering men seldom achieve the art of opening
champagne.

Mrs Cheswardine tapped her pink-slippered foot impatiently.

'You're all nerves tonight,' Woodruff laughed, 'and you've made me
nervous,' And at length he got some of the champagne into a tumbler.

'No, I'm not,' Mrs Cheswardine contradicted him.

'Yes, you are, Vera,' Woodruff insisted calmly.

She smiled. The use of that elegant Christian name, with its faint
suggestion of Russian archduchesses, had a strange effect on her,
particularly from the lips of Woodruff. She was proud of it, and of her
surname too--one of the oldest surnames in the Five Towns. The
syllables of 'Vera' invariably soothed her, like a charm