"Oh, Max!" Sally's tones were dismayed. "Why, we _can't_!"

"We'll have to. What would you have me do--wire them not to stop?
Besides, I couldn't get them. They've left the place they wired
from--reach here to-night at nine. You'll have to have some kind of
supper for them."

"But, Max--where--"

"Oh, figure it out somehow--you can, you know. I haven't a minute more
to talk--inspector's here--everybody busy--" and the click of the
receiver in Sally's ear ended the interview.

The Chases! They were young married people, who had been neighbours and
schoolmates of the Lanes. Dorothy Eustis, as an older girl, had been much
admired by Sally and Josephine until she married Neil Chase; that event
had made a great difference in their warmth of feeling. Sally did not
like Neil, never had liked him, and never would like him. A certain
pomposity of manner, which had been a characteristic of his, ever since
the days when he wore dresses and lorded it over the other infants in the
park, had made him unpopular. He had, however, become a successful young
attorney in his father's law firm, and had within the last year gone to a
larger city several hundred miles away to start practice for himself.

The thought of entertaining Neil and Dorothy Chase in the little
apartment was almost too much for Sally Lane. The Chases had gone away
just before the Lanes had sold the old house, and knew nothing of the new
quarters--evidently realized nothing of their small dimensions. It had
been characteristic of them to telegraph that they were coming, without
waiting for a reply. That was precisely like Neil.