ed, the women left the
table.

In the drawing-room, as the other women lighted their cigarettes, Nina
stood leaning her cheek on her hand as it rested against the mantel--and
for some time she gazed down into the fire, while Porter's words echoed
and reechoed through her mind. When she turned away from the fire her
attention was caught by an Englishwoman who had thrown herself full
length on the sofa. Her person was a curious mixture of cleanliness and
untidiness, her face was even polished by soap and scrubbing, but her
frock, although probably quite clean, looked anything but fresh, and
lying down among the cushions had not improved her hair, which had been
frowzily frizzed anyway. Nina would have thought Lady Dorothy an
impossible person were it not for the "Lady" which, as Carpazzi put it,
"was pushed before the name."

In the meanwhile Lady Dorothy went off into a long disquisition upon the
advisability of having couches at formal banquets as in the old Roman
days. The illustration which she was at the moment affording was
scarcely, to Nina's mind, encouraging to her proposition. She smoked
rapidly and let the cigarette ashes spill all down the side of her
neck.

"Isn't it funny what a little place the world is?" babbled the late Miss
Titherington, cutting short Lady Dorothy's discourse. "Here we are, you
and I and John--just the same as though we were back in Bar Harbor! What
a lamb of a child you used to be! Only do you remember the day you
nearly drowned me? And he had to rescue us both!"

"Just fancy that!" said the Lady Dorothy from her corner of the sofa.
"However did it happen?"

"The water in Maine is so cold one dare hardly go in. Nina was a little
girl, she got a cramp, and clutched me around the neck."

"The water cold! How very odd! I had a friend in St. Augustine, who said
the water was positively hot. I am sure it must have been, as my friend
has rheumatism and could never have ventured into a cold bath."

Lady Dorothy lighted a fresh cigarette and waved the old one helplessly
around in her fingers. Nina, afraid that she would let it fall upon the
trail of ashes down the front of her dress, went to take it from her.

"Oh, thanks." She threw herself even further back into the cushions and
now addressed her remarks to the Countess Kate. She was glad to get away
from home. She declared London was overrun this season with enormously,
disgustingly, rich Americans. No offense to her hostess was mea