it spread itself over the sitting-room while Mrs.
Venables talked. Mrs. Venables wanted another social evening in the
Vicolo Fiori.

'Yes,' said Betty. 'I'll l-let people know.' (She was stammering
horribly to-day.) 'But--but I'm afraid I shall be busy myself.'

Since the evening had not been specified, this was rather too manifestly
a brick in the wall. Mrs. Venables pointed it out, with 'Every night, my
dear?' and a lift of the brows.

Betty held to it.

'And--and every day as well. We're very busy just now, Tommy and I.'

They had become bored with the new atmosphere; they wanted to throw it
wholly off, and be left in peace with their less reputable friends; this
Mrs. Venables deduced, with displeasure now rising.

'I think,' she said, 'that it is to be regretted--very much to be
regretted.'

Her tone dragged in to be regretted so very much more than the mere
fact--the only one offered her--of the Crevequers' excess of occupation,
that Betty's dark brows flickered nervously, resentfully, as if she
feared something.

Miranda's round eyes beamed with sympathy. The desire to avoid another
social evening with the very poor was wholly within the sphere of her
comprehension.

'It's a rotten game; I hate it,' she observed.

Mrs. Venables spoke to her quite sharply for once on the subject of
limitations of interest and ungracefulness of speech. Miranda, indeed,
was a little in the way at the moment; she made intimate approach
difficult.

Then Tommy came in, with Luli clinging to his arm. Both were so
dishevelled, so flushed, so hilarious, that only one supposition was
tenable. Mrs. Venables held it, and her eyes grew still more inclusive
in their regret. She did not realize that it took really very little to
excite the Crevequers and Luli.

Again Miranda was in the way. Betty realized it, looking, with the
acquirements of her three weeks' retrospect in her pondering eyes, from
one to another. It was not suitable that Miranda should be there. Betty,
with the realization, achieved a fuller comprehension of the suitable
than Mrs. Venables possessed; the thought amused her. Mrs. Venables
caught the half-smile flickering to her eyes.

'The gulf of mirth,' she observed afterwards, 'is wider than the gulf of
tears. One doubts if there is any bridge across it.'

The regret deepened in her eyes.

When Mrs. Venables had gone, and when Luli (much later) had gone also,
Tommy said:

'What rot, Betty. What can we do