ith a
complete change of tone, as if reverting to some new topic of
conversation:

"Mr. Penfield was speaking of your friend, Miss Oldham, a moment or two
ago, Mrs. Habersham. Perhaps you will be able to tell me the identity of
the rather elderly, ordinary-looking man with whom I have seen her
several times lately?"

It seemed to Hayden that Bea's face grew a shade paler, but his momentary
apprehension gave way to a swift admiration for her poise, the casual and
careless indifference with which she answered:

"I am sure I can't imagine, Mrs. Ames. Marcia has many friends, more I
fancy than you dream of." He also felt a swift longing to take Horace
Penfield by the scruff of his thin, craning neck and drop him from the
window instead of permitting him to sit there calmly sipping his liqueur
with that faint, amused smile as of gratified malice about his lips.

Then he drew a breath of relief. Every one was rising.

"You were magnificent," he whispered as he drew aside for Bea to pass.

She smiled gratefully at him. "Thank goodness, it's to be bridge now and
not conversation."

A few minutes later they were all seated at the card-tables and except
for the occasional low-toned voicing of the conventions of the game, a
grateful silence reigned.

But at the close of the afternoon, just as they were leaving, Bea asked
Hayden if he would not drive down-town with her and let her drop him at
his apartment. He accepted gladly, hoping in the brief intimacy of the
drive homeward together that she would speak of Marcia.

But for a season, Mrs. Habersham cared only to discuss the scene they had
just left; the fortunes of the game; the excellencies of this player, the
atrocities of that; the eccentricities of their hostess and her
apparently ineradicable passion for ugliness.

"It is true," she assured him, "about the red paper and the green and
blue parrots in gilt cages; a woman who has seen it swore upon her
honor."

They had by this time turned into the Park, and Bea leaned forward to
inhale the fresher air. Night was falling fast; the spreading
lawn-spaces, the dense shrubbery, the irregularly disposed trees were no
longer distinct, but melted together, indistinguishable and unfeatured
blurs in the deepening twilight.

Bea drooped her brow on her hand and sat in silence for a few moments.
Then she turned to Hayden, her lips compressed, her hands clasped tightly
together.

"Isn't it awful! Isn't it dreadful!" she cr