fatigable
hospitality. Lily was reluctant to leave, for the dinner was amusing, and
she would have liked to lounge over a cigarette and hear a few songs; but
she could not break her engagement with Judy, and shortly after ten she
asked her hostess to ring for a hansom, and drove up Fifth Avenue to the
Trenors'.

She waited long enough on the doorstep to wonder that Judy's presence in
town was not signalized by a greater promptness in admitting her; and her
surprise was increased when, instead of the expected footman, pushing his
shoulders into a tardy coat, a shabby care-taking person in calico let
her into the shrouded hall. Trenor, however, appeared at once on the
threshold of the drawing-room, welcoming her with unusual volubility
while he relieved her of her cloak and drew her into the room.

"Come along to the den; it's the only comfortable place in the house.
Doesn't this room look as if it was waiting for the body to be brought
down? Can't see why Judy keeps the house wrapped up in this awful
slippery white stuff--it's enough to give a fellow pneumonia to walk
through these rooms on a cold day. You look a little pinched yourself, by
the way: it's rather a sharp night out. I noticed it walking up from the
club. Come along, and I'll give you a nip of brandy, and you can toast
yourself over the fire and try some of my new Egyptians--that little
Turkish chap at the Embassy put me on to a brand that I want you to try,
and if you like 'em I'll get out a lot for you: they don't have 'em here
yet, but I'll cable."

He led her through the house to the large room at the back, where Mrs.
Trenor usually sat, and where, even in her absence, there was an air of
occupancy. Here, as usual, were flowers, newspapers, a littered
writing-table, and a general aspect of lamp-lit familiarity, so that it
was a surprise not to see Judy's energetic figure start up from the
arm-chair near the fire.

It was apparently Trenor himself who had been occupying the seat in
question, for it was overhung by a cloud of cigar smoke, and near it
stood one of those intricate folding tables which British ingenuity has
devised to facilitate the circulation of tobacco and spirits. The sight
of such appliances in a drawing-room was not unusual in Lily's set, where
smoking and drinking were unrestricted by considerations of time and
place, and her first movement was to help herself to one of the
cigarettes recommended by Trenor, while she checked his lo