.

The house of Ruthven was a small but ultra-modern limestone affair,
between Madison and Fifth; a pocket-edition of the larger mansions of
their friends, but with less excuse for the overelaboration since the
dimensions were only twenty by a hundred. As a matter of fact its narrow
ornate facade presented not a single quiet space the eyes might rest on
after a tiring attempt to follow and codify the arabesques, foliations,
and intricate vermiculations of what some disrespectfully dubbed as
"near-aissance."

However, into this limestone bonbon-box tripped Mrs. Ruthven, mounted
the miniature stairs with a whirl of her scented skirts, peeped into the
drawing-room, but continued mounting until she whipped into her own
apartments, separated from those of her lord and master by a locked
door.

That is, the door had been locked for a long, long time; but presently,
to her intense surprise and annoyance, it slowly opened, and a little
man appeared in slippered feet.

He was a little man, and plump, and at first glance his face appeared
boyish and round and quite guiltless of hair or of any hope of it.

But, as he came into the electric light, the hardness of his features
was apparent; he was no boy; a strange idea that he had never been
assailed some people. His face was puffy and pallid and faint blue
shadows hinted of closest shaving; and the line from the wing of the
nostrils to the nerveless corners of his thin, hard mouth had been
deeply bitten by the acid of unrest.

For the remainder he wore pale-rose pajamas under a silk-and-silver
kimona, an obi pierced with a jewelled scarf-pin; and he was smoking a
cigarette as thin as a straw.

"Well!" said his young wife in astonished displeasure, instinctively
tucking her feet--from which her maid had just removed the shoes--under
her own chamber-robe.

"Send her out a moment," he said, with a nod of his head toward the
maid. His voice was agreeable and full--a trifle precise and
overcultivated, perhaps.

When the maid retired, Alixe sat up on the lounge, drawing her skirts
down over her small stockinged feet.

"What on earth is the matter?" she demanded.

"The matter is," he said, "that Gerald has just telephoned me from the
Stuyvesant that he isn't coming."

"Well?"

"No, it isn't well. This is some of your meddling."

"What if it is?" she retorted; but her breath was coming quicker.

"I'll tell you; you can get up and ring him up and tell him you expect
hi