ders with some surprise. "Are we going
to gamble?"

"You believe in that scandal about bridge?"

"Certainly not," said Flanders, smiling. "You see I was present. The
Cheevers play a good game, a well united game, and have an unusual
system of makes. By-the-way, it's Jackson who is very attentive to Mrs.
Cheever, isn't it?"

"Quite right."

"What a charming party," said Flanders flippantly. "And where does Maude
Lille come in?"

"Don't joke. She is in a desperate way," said Mrs. Kildair, with a
little sadness in her eyes.

"And Harris?"

"Oh, he is to make the salad and cream the chicken."

"Ah, I see the whole party. I, of course, am to add the element of
respectability."

"Of what?"

She looked at him steadily until he turned away, dropping his glance.

"Don't be an ass with me, my dear Flanders."

"By George, if this were Europe I'd wager you were in the secret
service, Mrs. Kildair."

"Thank you."

She smiled appreciatively and moved about the studio, giving the
finishing touches. The Stanley Cheevers entered, a short fat man with a
vacant fat face and a slow-moving eye, and his wife, voluble, nervous,
overdressed and pretty. Mr. Harris came with Maude Lille, a woman,
straight, dark, Indian, with great masses of somber hair held in a
little too loosely for neatness, with thick, quick lips and eyes that
rolled away from the person who was talking to her. The Enos Jacksons
were late and still agitated as they entered. His forehead had not quite
banished the scowl, nor her eyes the scorn. He was of the type that
never lost his temper, but caused others to lose theirs, immovable in
his opinions, with a prowling walk, a studied antagonism in his manner,
and an impudent look that fastened itself unerringly on the weakness in
the person to whom he spoke. Mrs. Jackson, who seemed fastened to her
husband by an invisible leash, had a hunted, resisting quality back of a
certain desperate dash, which she assumed rather than felt in her
attitude toward life. One looked at her curiously and wondered what such
a nature would do in a crisis, with a lurking sense of a woman who
carried with her her own impending tragedy.

As soon as the company had been completed and the incongruity of the
selection had been perceived, a smile of malicious anticipation ran the
rounds, which the hostess cut short by saying:

"Well, now that every one is here, this is the order of the night: You
can quarrel all you want, you can