rrect and
stately and----"

"--discontented. I admit I've talked like a fractious child all day. But
I've had a good time and want to come oftener than I have. May I?"

"Of course you may. Must you go? I'll keep you to dinner and send for
Wayne."

"You're an angel, but I've an engagement for five o'clock, and there's the
Reardons' this evening. You won't forget that? You and Anthony will be
sure to come?"

"I'll not promise absolutely, but I'll see. Mrs. Reardon was so kind as to
leave it open. It's an informal affair, I believe?"

"Informal, but very gorgeous, just the same. She wouldn't give anybody but
you such an elastic invitation as that, and you should appreciate her
eagerness to get you," declared Judith, who cared very much from whom her
invitations came and could never understand her friend's careless attitude
toward the most impressive of them.

Juliet watched her guest go down the street, and waved an affectionate
hand at her as Judith looked back from her seat in the trolley car. "Poor
old Judy," she said to herself. "How glad you are you're not I!--And how
very, very glad I am I'm not you!"

An observation, it must be admitted, essentially feminine. No man is ever
heard to felicitate himself upon the fact that he is not some other man.

XV.--ANTHONY PLAYS MAID

After dinner that night, Juliet, having once more put things in order and
slipped off the big pinafore which had kept her spotless, joined her
husband in the garden up and down which he was comfortably pacing, hands
in pockets, pipe in mouth.

"Jolly spot, isn't it? Come and perambulate," he suggested.

"Just for a minute. Tony, are we going to the Reardons?"

He stood still and considered. "I don't know. Are we? Did you accept?"

"On condition that you felt like it. I represented you as coming home
decidedly fagged these hot nights and not always caring to stir."

"Wise schemer! I don't mind the aspersion on my physical being. She urged,
I suppose?"

"She did. I don't know why."

"I do." Anthony smiled down at his wife. "Everybody is a bit curious about
us these days. Your position, you see, is considered very extraordinary."

"Nonsense, Tony. Shall we go?"

"Possibly we'd better, though it racks my soul to think of dressing. The
less I wear my festive garments the less I want to. For that very reason,
suppose we discipline ourselves and go. Do you mind?"

"Not at all. We'll have to dress at once, for it's nearly eigh