Oh! it will be very fine; all my best of everything--crystal, silver and
gold, Sevres, flowers, music, and champagne to swim in. I'll let Leonce
pay the bills. I wonder what he'll say when he sees the bills.

"And you ask me why I call it a coup d'etat?" Arobin had put on his
coat, and he stood before her and asked if his cravat was plumb. She
told him it was, looking no higher than the tip of his collar.

"When do you go to the 'pigeon house?'--with all due acknowledgment to
Ellen."

"Day after to-morrow, after the dinner. I shall sleep there."

"Ellen, will you very kindly get me a glass of water?" asked Arobin.
"The dust in the curtains, if you will pardon me for hinting such a
thing, has parched my throat to a crisp."

"While Ellen gets the water," said Edna, rising, "I will say good-by and
let you go. I must get rid of this grime, and I have a million things to
do and think of."

"When shall I see you?" asked Arobin, seeking to detain her, the maid
having left the room.

"At the dinner, of course. You are invited."

"Not before?--not to-night or to-morrow morning or tomorrow noon or
night? or the day after morning or noon? Can't you see yourself, without
my telling you, what an eternity it is?"

He had followed her into the hall and to the foot of the stairway,
looking up at her as she mounted with her face half turned to him.

"Not an instant sooner," she said. But she laughed and looked at him
with eyes that at once gave him courage to wait and made it torture to
wait.

XXX

Though Edna had spoken of the dinner as a very grand affair, it was
in truth a very small affair and very select, in so much as the guests
invited were few and were selected with discrimination. She had counted
upon an even dozen seating themselves at her round mahogany board,
forgetting for the moment that Madame Ratignolle was to the last degree
souffrante and unpresentable, and not foreseeing that Madame Lebrun
would send a thousand regrets at the last moment. So there were only
ten, after all, which made a cozy, comfortable number.

There were Mr. and Mrs. Merriman, a pretty, vivacious little woman in
the thirties; her husband, a jovial fellow, something of a shallow-pate,
who laughed a good deal at other people's witticisms, and had thereby
made himself extremely popular. Mrs. Highcamp had accompanied them. Of
course, there was Alcee Arobin; and Mademoiselle Reisz had consented
to come. Edna had sent her a fresh