ther. "Say, bo! There's
somethin' doin' when Sondheim hands it out!"

* * * * *

Ilse went away with Estridge. Palla came along among the other women,
and turned aside to offer her hand to Jim.

"Did you expect to take me home?" she asked demurely.

"Didn't you expect me to?" he inquired uneasily.

"I? Why should I?" She slipped her arm into his with a little nestling
gesture. "And it's a very odd thing, Jim, that they left the chafing
dish on the table. And that before she went to bed my waitress laid
covers for two."

CHAPTER XVI

"Are you worried about this Dumont girl?" asked Shotwell Senior
abruptly.

His wife did not look up from her book. After an interval:

"Yes," she said, "I am."

Her husband watched her over the top of his newspaper.

"I can't believe there's anything in it," he said. "But it's a shame
that Jim should worry you so."

"He doesn't mean to."

"Probably he doesn't, but what's the difference? You're unhappy and
he's the reason of it. And it isn't as though he were a cub any
longer, either. He's old enough to know what he's about. He's no Willy
Baxter."

"That is what makes me anxious," said Helen Shotwell. "Do you know,
dear, that he hasn't dined here once this week, yet he seems to go
nowhere else--nowhere except to her."

"What sort of woman is she?" he demanded, wiping his eyeglasses as
though preparing to take a long-distance look at Palla.

"I know her only at the Red Cross."

"Well, is she at all common?"

"No.... That is why it is difficult for me to talk to Jim about her.
There's nothing of that sort to criticise."

"No social objections to the girl?"

"None. She's an unusual girl."

"Attractive?"

"Unfortunately."

"Well, then----"

"Oh, James, I _want_ him to marry Elorn! And if he's going to make
himself conspicuous over this Dumont girl, I don't think I can bear
it!"

"What _is_ the objection to the girl, Helen?" he asked, flinging his
paper onto a table and drawing nearer the fire.

"She isn't at all our kind, James----"

"But you just said----"

"I don't mean socially. And still, as far as that goes, she seems to
care nothing whatever for position or social duties or obligations."

"That's not so unusual in these days," he remarked. "Lots of nice
girls are fed up on the social aspects of life."

"Well, for example, she has not made the slightest effort to know
anybody worth knowing. Janet Spe