s too big for his
clothes, which were just a bit flashy, and he looked as though he
might like to doff his coat.

Mary Louise and Claybrook arrived at eight-thirty. At eight
thirty-five Thompson produced a flask from a desk drawer and mixed up
a couple of high balls with an air of grave deliberation. The glasses
were placed on the folding bridge table and remained there throughout
the evening, Mrs. Thompson stooping over and taking delicate sips
from her husband's glass every now and then.

The game languished. Mary Louise did not know much about it and the
men would lapse into rather boisterous spells of conversation during
which time the cards would lie on the table forgotten, and Mrs.
Thompson would gaze at her husband with deep absorption and
occasionally at Claybrook and sometimes at Mary Louise in a far-off,
absent-minded way. And then they would ask each other whose deal it
was and "How were the honours?" and then they would be at it again.
Claybrook laughed at the slightest provocation, and seemed to pay a
little too obsequious attention to whatever Thompson had to say, and
after a while the conversation narrowed down entirely to the two men,
with Mrs. Thompson contracting a glassy look in her pale-blue eyes
beneath their fine-plucked brows. And at ten o'clock she stifled a
yawn behind her handkerchief, threw down her cards, got up and went
over to the corner where stood an expensive "Victrola."

"Let's have a little jazz," she said brightly. The men were busy
discussing the income tax and the ways of avoiding it and did not seem
to mind at all. And Mary Louise welcomed the suggestion with relief.

For another hour they sat back in deep chairs, relaxed, relieved of
responsibility. And then Claybrook, straightening in his chair, said:
"Think I'll have to get a new car. The old wagon's been losing
compression. Hasn't any get-away at all these days." Then turning
abruptly to Mary Louise who, sunk back in her chair, was absently
dreaming, "What kind shall I get? You're the one to be pleased." The
crow's-feet at the corners of his eyes gathered in tight little
clusters and there was an odd pucker about his lips.

In spite of herself she flushed fiery red. There was in the tone a
suggestion of proprietary claim that jangled on her. Almost without
thinking she replied, "Joe Hooper's selling the Marlowe. It's the best
make, isn't it?"

Three pairs of eyes were regarding her, Claybrook's with a slight
frown. He c