tess so that Bee would not feel disgraced.

I followed her eye as it travelled over our gowns and around the
apartment. Bee does not realize that she has silently appointed
herself Superior General to the universe, so she was somewhat
disconcerted, when, as she finally leaned back with a sigh which seemed
to say, "This is really as well as anybody could do who didn't have me
to consult with," to hear Aubrey say, slyly:

"Well, Bee, does it suit?"

Bee assumed her most Park Lane air, and replied:

"I don't know what you mean, Aubrey."

Then to avoid further pleasantries, Mary standing in the doorway, I
marshalled them all out to the table.

Flora was between Aubrey and Artie, but I put Cary on the other side of
Artie, while I took Jimmie by me, and mercilessly handed Mrs. Jimmie
over to the "also rans."

Flora, who pretended jealousy of the Angel to veil her instinctive
dislike of one who read her through and through, frankly turned her
back on him, and tried all her wiles on Artie, which would not have
disconcerted him, had not the Also Ran commenced to smile and attract
Mrs. Jimmie's attention to it.

This brought Artie from his trance sufficiently to cause him to turn
his attention to Cary, but it was so palpably forced that Cary devoted
herself with ardour to Jimmie, and left Artie speechless.

Then something spurred Flora to do a foolish thing. She deliberately
began to bait Cary--to say things to annoy her--to try to mortify her.
At first Cary refused to see what was evident to the rest of us. (Oh,
my dinner-party was proving such a success!)

At this critical juncture, Mary appeared bearing the chafing-dish full
of blazing, flaming peaches, and in watching me ladle the fiery liquid,
hostilities were for the moment discontinued. Involuntarily, as Mary's
satisfied countenance betokened her complete happiness at the
successful culmination of the dinner, my eyes wandered to the
dining-room windows. I had drawn the shades with my own hand, but some
mysterious agent had been at work, for they were let fly to the very
window-tops.

I glanced at Mary. She pressed her lips together with a whimsical
twist, and surreptitiously raised a finger in sly warning.

"Them rubbers are having a fit!" she murmured in my ear, as she
deferentially took a blazing peach from me, and placed it before Flora
with a look so black it seemed to say:

"If you get your deserts, you little blister, it would set fire to you!"