ertainly be a separation
just so soon as Dwight could effect it. Meantime, Inez had ever her
faithful Felicie, her phaeton, her flowers from town, her lovely gowns
and fluffy wraps, her long hours abed after sun-up, her late hours and
suppers, concerning which kitchen cabinets of officers' row had
superabundant information, and a certain firm in Silver Hill a
swift-growing account, on the face of which the item, "Case Pommery Sec,
Pints," appeared with a frequency suggestive of supper parties of
several people instead of only one or two. The domestics at the Dwights'
were a disloyal lot, if Felicie's views were accepted, but as members of
the establishment they resented it that the "frog-eating Feelissy"
should dare to give them orders. "Madame much objected to their late
hours." "It was Madame's wish they should be in their rooms by eleven
o'clock, and that even when there was a dance they should be home by
twelve." Their rooms were under the low mansard, on what might be called
the third floor, and a back staircase led from the kitchen to the upper
regions; therefore, there was no need of their entering the dining-room
late at night. Still, they saw no reason why a bolt should have been
placed on the door. They said improper things at the advent of that
obstruction during Foster's brief visit, and, after his unlamented
departure, the spare bedroom on the lower floor, assigned to that
distinguished officer, had been most ostentatiously aired. Foster's
consumption of cigarettes was something abnormal, two receivers being
sometimes left in the dining-room over night, both well burdened with
ashes and discolored ends--the only tips, by the way, the parting guest,
apparently, had time to leave.

No, those servitors had rebelled at heart against both mistress and
maid, but the master's dictum had for a time enforced obedience. Now,
however, they were in almost open revolt. "It was her that drove him
crazy or he'd never have beaten Master Jimmy!" was the comprehensive
verdict. Yet housewives who heard their tales and reported them to their
lords met sometimes with rebuff. "Growl because they're sent to bed at
eleven o'clock, do they? They'd growl the harder if ordered to sit up
till then," was one way the unresponsive husband had of settling the
story. But wives, who are wiser in the ways of the domestic world, felt
sure there was something coming to explain it all, and something
came--though, so far from explaining, it seem