sumption by her
of that quality always made her a little tragic or (if one chanced to be
in the humour--Honora was not) a little ridiculous.

"I suppose I have no pride," she said, as she halted within a few feet of
the doorway.

"Why, Lily!" exclaimed Honora, pushing back the chair from her desk, and
rising.

But Mrs. Dallam did not move.

"I suppose I have no pride," she repeated in a dead voice, "but I just
couldn't help coming over and giving you a chance."

"Giving me a chance?" said Honora.

"To explain--after the way you treated me at the polo game. If I hadn't
seen it with my own eyes, I shouldn't have believed it. I don't think I
should have trusted my own eyes," Mrs. Dallam went so far as to affirm,
"if Lula Chandos and Clara Trowbridge and others hadn't been there and
seen it too; I shouldn't have believed it."

Honora was finding penitence a little difficult. But her heart was kind.

"Do sit down, Lily," she begged. "If I've offended you in any way, I'm
exceedingly sorry--I am, really. You ought to know me well enough to
understand that I wouldn't do anything to hurt your feelings."

"And when I counted on you so, for my tea and dinner at the club!"
continued Mrs. Dallam. "There were other women dying to come. And you
said you had a headache, and were tired."

"I was," began Honora, fruitlessly.

"And you were so popular in Quicksands--everybody was crazy about you.
You were so sweet and so unspoiled. I might have known that it couldn't
last. And now, because Abby Kame and Cecil Grainger and--"

"Lily, please don't say such things!" Honora implored, revolted.

"Of course you won't be satisfied now with anything less than Banbury or
Newport. But you can't say I didn't warn you, Honora, that they are a
horrid, selfish, fast lot," Lily Dallam declared, and brushed her eyes
with her handkerchief. "I did love you."

"If you'll only be reasonable a moment, Lily,--" said Honora.

"Reasonable! I saw you with my own eyes. Five minutes after you left me
they all started for your house, and Lula Chandos said it was the
quickest cure of a headache she had ever seen."

"Lily," Honora began again, with exemplary patience, when people invite
themselves to one's house, it's a little difficult to refuse them
hospitality, isn't it?"

"Invite themselves?"

"Yes," replied Honora. "If I weren't--fond of you, too, I shouldn't make
this explanation. I was tired. I never felt less like entertaining
strangers.