ble,
had caught the mention of his name. "What's that?"

"We were talking stocks," Loftus answered. "Do you know how money was
today?"

"I know it was beastly tight."

"And that seems to me," Fanny with one of her limpid smiles remarked,
"such a vulgar condition for money to be in."

"Did I hear you ask," Orr inquired, "how money was today? It was sixty
per cent."

"Dear me, Melanchthon," Mrs. Waldron exclaimed. "I think I must get
you to speak to the Trust Company. They only give me three. A mouse
could not live in New York on that."

"The time is not distant," said Orr, "when the population of New York
will be exclusively composed of mice and millionaires. Nobody but
plutocrats and paupers will be able to live here. Already it is little
more than a sordid hell with a blue sky. I can remember----"

Orr ran on. He had the table. In the impromptu which ensued other
conversation was swamped. But during it, for a second, Loftus had
Fanny's hand in his. It clasped it and in clasping thrilled. It was
the first time in her life that she had permitted herself--or
him--such a thing. It was the last.

Sylvia, happening at the moment to turn that way, could not help
seeing what was going on. She colored and looked at Annandale.

During Orr's impromptu he had been attempting with plentiful champagne
to fill the hole of which he had complained.

Later, the dinner at an end, the women gone, the hole still unfilled,
he called for whisky and soda and monologued plaintively on the
disasters of the day. As he talked he drank. But the monologue, which
was becoming tedious, Harris interrupted. Mrs. Waldron had sent in to
say that she and Miss Waldron were going, and would Mr. Orr be so good
as to see them home.

At this Annandale got up. With the others he made for the room beyond.
There, shortly, the guests of the evening departed; husband and wife
were alone.

"Do you know, Fanny, how much I have lost today?" that husband began.

"No, Arthur," that wife replied. "Nor do I know that I particularly
care. There is something more important to me than money just now. I
want a divorce."

"Eh?" Annandale had been walking up and down the room, but at this he
stopped short. He did not seem to have heard aright. "Eh?"

"Eh?" Fanny repeated in open mimic. "Yes, I want a divorce."

"A divorce?" Munching the syllables of the word, Annandale put a hand
to his shirt front. "From me?" Had Fanny asked him to make good the
fifty mil