"Who is Harvey?" inquired the big blond man who sat beside her.

"My teenty-weenty hubby," said she, airily.

There were two other men besides the big blond in the party, and the
wife of one of them--a balance wheel.

The big blond man stared at his hostess. He expected her to laugh at
her own joke, but she did not. The others were discussing the relative
merits of the Packard and Peerless cars. He waited a moment and then
leaned closer to Nellie's ear.

"Are you in earnest?" he asked, in low tones.

"About what, Mr. Fairfax?"

"Hubby. Have you got one?"

"Of course I have. Had him for six years. Why?"

He swallowed hard. A wave of red crept up over his jowl and to the
very roots of his hair.

"I've known you for over a month, Nellie," he said, a hard light in
his fishy grey eyes, "and you've never mentioned this husband of
yours. What's the game?"

"It's a guessing game," she said, coolly. "You might guess what I'm
wearing this little plain gold ring on my left hand for. It's there
where everybody can see it, isn't it? You just didn't take the trouble
to look, Mr. Fairfax. Women don't wear wedding rings for a joke, let
me tell you that."

"I never noticed it," he said, huskily. "The truth is, it never
entered my head to think you could be a married woman."

"Thought I was divorced, eh?"

"Well, divorces are not uncommon, you know. You girls seem to get rid
of husbands quite as easily as you pick them up."

"Lord bless you," said Nellie, in no way offended, "I have never done
anything to give Harvey cause for divorce, and I'm sure he's never
done the tiniest thing out of the way. He never treats me cruelly, he
never beats me, he doesn't get tight and break things up, and he never
looks at other women. He's the nicest little husband ever."

She instructed Rachel to fill up Mr. Fairfax's glass and pass the ripe
olives. He was watching her, an odd expression in his eyes. A big,
smooth-faced man of fifty was he, fat from high living,
self-indulgence, and indolence, immaculately dressed to the tips of
his toes.

"Speaking of divorce," she went on, without looking at him, "your wife
didn't have much trouble getting hers, I've heard."

It was a daring thing to say, but Nellie was from the West, where
courage and freshness of vision are regarded as the antithesis of tact
and diplomacy. Tact calls for tact. The diplomatist is powerless if
you begin shooting at him. Nellie did not work this out for herself;