s Jinny has hurt her hand, Miss Pat," she said with
exaggerated anxiety. "She's got her handkerchief wrapped about it. I
hope it isn't badly hurt--she doesn't look as if it were _inimical_,
does she?"

Patricia made a gesture of amused impatience. "You monkey, you aren't
thinking of Miss Jinny's hand at all. Where did you get that stuffy
word?"

"It isn't stuffy," defended Judith with a flash. "It's a nice,
crackling word, and I got it from Arnold Bennet, if you want to know.
He uses it all the time. And I've got another, too--'inept'--and
that's what you are now, Patricia Kendall. I'm ashamed of your extreme
indifference to the beauties of your own language."

Patricia halted by the chair at a side table where her name card lay.
Her eyes were fastened on Judith with a peculiarly penetrating gaze,
and her firm grasp detained the arm that would have escaped.

"Judith, my child, there's something up, and you'd better confess at
once," she said gravely. "No one will hear you now while we're getting
our places. What is it you're plotting?"

Judith wriggled from her with an expression of injured innocence that
almost satisfied her.

"I'm not going to do anything, Miss Pat," she declared with emphasis.
"You can ask Bruce if I'm 'up to' anything, as you call it."

Patricia reluctantly released her and she slipped away to her own table
with Madalon Halden, Tom Hughes, and little Jack Grantly, a nephew of
the sculptor, who had been invited specially for Judith's sake, and who
was promptly set down by that discriminating young person as being much
too young for the high post of companion to her.

Miriam Halden, Mr. Hilton, Griffin, Margaret Howes, Herbert Lester and
David--officially known as Francis Edward, but particularly recognized
by his twin as Frad--all sat at the same rose-decked table with
Patricia, and, as Griffin put it, they made the other tables look "like
thirty cents in pennies." The candle light sparkled on laughing eyes
and white teeth, and ripples of merriment enlivened every mouthful of
the savory dishes that Dufranne's dignified Francois, aided by the
radiant Henry, served continuously.

Patricia felt sorry for Elinor and Bruce that they should be marooned
among the elder and more serious members of the party, but, as David
pointed out to her in an answering whisper, they seemed uncommonly
satisfied where they were and not at all in need of sympathy.

"We're going to see the decoration--t