"Would this blue thing do for to-night?" she asked, "or isn't it enough
of an affair? What sort of party is it anyhow?"

"Goodness knows," said Lucile. "Between your father and Paula I find it
rather upsetting."

Mary had reached out negligently for her cigarette case, lighted one and
letting it droop at a rather impossible angle, supported by the lightest
pressure of her lips so that the smoke crept up over her face into her
lashes and her hair, folded her hands demurely in her lap and waited for
her aunt to go on. She was mischievously half aware of the disturbing
effect of this sort of thing upon Lucile.

"What has there been between them?" Mary asked, when it became clear that
her aunt needed prompting. "Between father and Paula, I mean. Not a row?"

Mary never used language like this except provocatively. It worked on her
aunt as she had meant it to.

"There has been nothing between them," she said, "that requires a rowdy
word like that to express. It has not been even a quarrel. But they have
been for the last day or two, a little--at ..."

"Outs?" Mary suggested.

This had been the word on Lucile's tongue. "At cross purposes," she
amended and paused again. But Mary seeing that she was fairly launched
waited, economically, meanwhile, inhaling all the smoke from her
cigarette. "I suppose after all, it's quite natural," Lucile began,