eliminaries in the way of greetings and cigarettes, and the swiftest
summary of her visit to New York ("I stayed just long enough to begin
being not quite so furious with John for not taking me there to live,")
Violet made a little silence, visibly lighted her bomb, and threw it.
"John and I went to the Globe last night to see _The Girl Up-stairs_,"
she said.

Jimmy carried his cocktail over to the fire, drew sharply on his
cigarette to get it evenly lighted, and by that time had decided on his
line.

"That's an amazing resemblance, isn't it?" he said.

"Resemblance fiddle-dee-dee!" said Violet.

John Williamson hunched himself around in his chair. "Well, you know,"
he protested to his wife, "that's the way I dope it out myself."

"Oh, _you!_" she said, with good-natured contempt. "You think you think
so. Because you've always been wild about Rose ever since Rodney married
her, you just won't let yourself think anything else. But Jimmy here,
doesn't even think he thinks so. He knows better."

"They're the limit, aren't they?" said John in rueful appeal to his
guest. "They not only know what you think, but what you think you think!
It's a marvelous thing--feminine intuition."

"'Intuition,' nothing!" said Violet. Then she rounded on Jimmy.

"How much have you found out about her--this girl with the 'astonishing
resemblance'?"

"Not very much," Jimmy confessed. "According to the program, her name is
Doris Dane. I did ask Block about her. He's one of the owners of the
piece. But he couldn't tell me very much. She's from out of town, he
thinks, and he said something about her being a dressmaker. She did some
work for them on the costumes. And she started in with this show as a
chorus-girl. But Galbraith, the director, got interested in her, and put
her into the sextette."

"Well, there we are," said John Williamson. "That settles it. Rose never
was a dressmaker, that's a cinch."

Even Violet seemed a little shaken, and Jimmy was just beginning to
congratulate himself on the skill with which he had modified what Block
had told him about the costumes, when Violet began on him again.

"All right!" she said. "Where are we? You know quite a lot of people in
that show, don't you?" This was a rhetorical question. It was notorious
that Jimmy knew more or less everybody. So, without waiting for an
answer, she went on, "Well, have you been behind the scenes there since
the thing began?"

"No, I've not gone back," said