we are?"

"Yes, within reason. Mary was too intellectual, too brilliant, too
well-informed on every subject that is discussed in salons, not to
attract men always. But with a difference! Quite elderly women in
Europe have _liaisons_, but alas! they can no longer send men off their
heads. It is technique meeting technique, intellectual companionship,
blowing on old ashes--or creating passion with the imagination. Life
is very sad for the women who have made a cult of men, and the cult of
men is the European woman's supreme achievement."

The delayed curtain rose and the house was silent. First-nighters,
unlike less distinguished audiences, never disgrace themselves by
whispering and chattering while the actors are on the stage.

At the end of this, the last act, while the audience, now on their
feet, were wildly applauding and fairly howling for the author of "the
first authentic success of the season," Clavering and Madame Zattiany
went swiftly up the aisle. A few others also hastened out, less
interested in authors than in taxi-cabs.

He handed her into her car and she invited him to enter and return with
her for a sandwich and a whiskey-and-soda. He hesitated a moment.
"I'll go with pleasure," he said. "But I think I'll walk.
It--it--would be better."

"Oh!" A curious expression that for the second it lasted seemed to
banish both youth and loveliness spread even to her nostrils. Sardonic
amusement hardly described it. Then it vanished and she said sweetly:
"You are very considerate. I shall expect you."

He did not walk. He took a taxi.

XI

She opened the door as he ran up the steps. "I never ask my servants
to sit up," she said. "Judge Trent warned me that the American servant
is as difficult to keep as to get and must be humored. When I think of
the wages I pay these pampered creatures and the amount of food they
consume, and then of my half-starved friends in Austria, it makes me
sick--sick!"

There being no reply to the axiomatic truth involved in these words,
Clavering followed her silently into the library. The log fire was
still burning and he hastily replenished it. They took their little
supper standing and then seated themselves in easy chairs on either
side of the hearth.

"Why don't you bring over your own servants?" he asked. "Time and
democracy might ruin them, but meanwhile you would have comfort.
Surely you brought your maid?"

"I've had no maid until now since