ush it up in the papers."

"Did you explain to her, Marcy, that stage life at its best can be full
of fine ideals and truth? Did you make her see how regular your own
little life has been? How little you know about--my work? How away I've
kept you? How I won't even play out-of-town engagements so we can always
be together in our little home? You must explain all those things to
your friends at Miss Harperly's. It helps--with steady people."

"I have, momie, and she's going to bring me home every afternoon in
their automobile after we've called for her brother Archie at Columbia
Law School."

"Marcy! the Grosbeck automobile bringing you home every day!"

"And it's going to call for me the night of the party. Nonie's getting a
lemon taffeta."

"I'll get you ivory, with a bit of real lace!"

"Oh, momie, momie, I can scarcely wait!"

"What did she say, Marcy, when she asked--invited you?"

"She?"

"Nonie."

"Why--she--didn't invite me, momie."

"But you just said--"

"It was her brother Archie invited me. We called for him at Columbia Law
School, you see. It was he invited me. Of course Nonie wants me and said
'Yes' right after him--but it's he--who wants Nonie and me to be chums.
I--He--I thought--I--told--you--momie."

Suddenly Marcia's eyes, almost with the perpendicular slits of her
kitten's in them, seemed to swish together like portieres, shutting
Hattie behind them with her.

"Oh--my Marcy!" said Hattie, dimly, after a while, as if from their
depths. "Marcy, dearest!"

"At--at Harperly's, momie, almost all the popular upper-class girls
wear--a--a boy's fraternity pin."

"Fraternity pin?"

"It's the--the beginning of being engaged."

"But, Marcy--"

"Archie's a Pi Phi!"

"A--what?"

"A Pi Phi."

"Phi--pie--Marcy--dear--"

* * * * *

On October 17th "Love Me Long" celebrated its two-hundredth performance.
Souvenir programs. A few appropriate words by the management.
A flashlight of the cast. A round of wine passed in the
after-the-performance gloom of the wings. Aqueous figures fading off in
the orderly back-stage fashion of a well-established success.

Hattie kissed the star. They liked each other with the unenvy of their
divergent roles. Miss Robinson even humored some of Hattie's laughs. She
liked to feel the flame of her own fairness as she stood there waiting
for the audience to guffaw its fill of Hattie's drolleries; a narcissus
swaying reedily be