, and the air was heavy with a combination of wood and tobacco
smoke, everybody's hair was ruffled, as if they had all been sitting on
the back of their heads, and Eliot, himself, now standing commandingly
on the hearth-rug, was saying:

"Yes, and he did not have a sound leg when he bought him, and that must
have been in 1909, for I remember it was the last year I went to
Melton--" He broke off reluctantly to greet his guests.

Lefferts, who looked peculiarly neat and fresh among his companions,
approached Burton, who was beside Mrs. Falkener.

"They have been talking for three hours," he observed, "about a splint
on the nigh foreleg of a gray horse that doesn't belong to any of them.
Sit down, Mrs. Falkener, and let us have a little rational conversation.
Doesn't that idea attract you?"

"Not particularly, since you ask me," replied Mrs. Falkener, not
deigning even to look at the poet, but sweeping her head about slowly as
if scanning vast horizons.

"The rational doesn't attract you," Lefferts went on cheerfully. "Well,
then we must try something else. How about the fantastic-sardonical, or
the comic-fantastical, or even better, the--"

But Mrs. Falkener, uttering a slight exclamation of impatience, moved
away.

Lefferts turned to Crane, with his unruffled smile.

"She doesn't like me," he said.

"Cora," he added, very slightly raising his voice so as to attract the
attention of Miss Falkener, who immediately approached them, "Cora, why
is it your mother hates me so much?"

"She certainly does," returned Cora frankly. "You know, Leonard, you are
really rather stupid with her. You always begin by saying things she
doesn't understand, and of course no one likes that."

Lefferts sighed.

"You see, she stimulates me so tremendously. One gets used to just
merely boring or depressing one's friends, but to be actively hated is
exciting. People who have lived through blood feuds and tong wars tell
you that there is no excitement comparable to it. I feel a little like
the leader of a tong whenever I meet Mrs. Falkener. Cora, would you
belong to my tong, or would you feel loyalty demanded your remaining in
your mother's?"

They went in to luncheon before Cora was obliged to answer, and here
Lefferts contrived to sit next to her by the comparatively simple
expedient of making the man who had already seated himself at her side
get up and yield him the place.

Crane, sitting between his host and another man, enjo