the arms with which she clung to him. "I'm sorry, child, but a
bargain is a bargain, and your mother won't trust us if we don't play
fair-- It's after eight and--" "But I haven't told you what was the
specialest thing I had to--" Dorothea turned to the woman standing
in the door holding her brother's hand; spoke to her rapidly.

"Je vous en prie, Mademoiselle Antoinette, Prenez Channing et ne
m'attendez pas. Je vous rejoindrai dans un instant. J'ai quelque
chose de tres important a dier a mon oncle--deux minutes et j'arrive!"

Antoinette hesitated, then, with a gesture of despair, left the room;
and instantly Dorothea was on a stool at her uncle's feet.

"Did you know?" Elbows on his knees and chin in the palms of her
hands she looked up eagerly in his face. "Did you know my cousin
Claudia was coming to-night?"

"I did."

"Isn't it grand!" Dorothea's hands came together, and in another
minute she was dancing round and round the room, the tip ends of her
skirt held by her fingers. "I'm crazy about my cousin Claudia.
She's my only correspondent, the only one I love to write to, I mean.
She writes things I like to hear about, and Christmas she sends me
something I want. That's the way we began to write. She sent me a
present, and father made me thank her in writing myself, and then she
wrote me and we've been friends ever since."

Laine knocked the ashes from his cigar toward the grate. "I didn't
know you knew Miss Keith."