upstairs, hearing her mother's apologetic, "Oh, Dad, why didn't I give
you back your club?" as she passed the dining-room door. She knew
Mother hated whist, and wondered rather irritably why she played it.
The Paget family was slow to settle down. Robert became tearful and
whining before he was finally bumped protesting into bed. Theodore and
Duncan prolonged their ablutions until the noise of shouting,
splashing, and thumping in the bathroom brought Mother to the foot of
the stairs. Rebecca was conversational. She lay with her slender arms
locked behind her head on the pillow, and talked, as Julie had talked
on that memorable night five years ago. Margaret, restless in the hot
darkness, wondering whether the maddening little shaft of light from
the hall gas was annoying enough to warrant the effort of getting up
and extinguishing it, listened and listened.

Rebecca wanted to join the Stage Club, but Mother wouldn't let her
unless Bruce did. Rebecca belonged to the Progressive Diners. Did Mark
suppose Mother'd think she was crazy if she asked the family not to be
in evidence when the crowd came to the house for the salad course? And
Rebecca wanted to write to Bruce's chum, not regularly, you know,
Mark, but just now and then, he was so nice! And Mother didn't like
the idea. Margaret was obviously supposed to lend a hand with these
interesting tangles.

"...and I said, 'Certainly not! I won't unmask at all, if it comes
to that!'... And imagine that elegant fellow carrying my old books
and my skates! So I wrote, and Maudie and I decided... And Mark,
if it wasn't a perfectly gorgeous box of roses!... That old, old
dimity, but Mother pressed and freshened it up.... Not that I want
to marry him, or any one..."

Margaret wakened from uneasy drowsing with a start. The hall was dark
now, the room cooler. Rebecca was asleep. Hands, hands she knew well,
were drawing a light covering over her shoulders. She opened her eyes
to see her mother.

"I've been wondering if you're disappointed about your friend not
coming to-morrow, Mark?" said the tender voice.

"Oh, no-o!" said Margaret, hardily. "Mother--why are you up so late?"

"Just going to bed," said the other, soothingly. "Blanche forgot to
put the oatmeal into the cooker, and I went downstairs again. I'll say
my prayers in here."

Margaret went off to sleep again, as she had so many hundred times
before, with her mother kneeling beside her.

CHAPTER VII

It seem