card, which had been sent up with mine, and looked at it through her
lorgnette, suspended around her neck by a chain studded with
amethysts, large and small. "We'll come with pleasure. Won't we,
Madeleine? Shall we write and tell her?"

"Of course not, mother. Didn't you just hear Miss Heath say it was
her regular 'at home' day? You don't write notes for things like
that." Miss Swink's eyes again turned in my direction. "I'm much
obliged, but I don't think I can come. I've an engagement for
Thursday."

"If it's with Harrie, he won't mind waiting awhile." With
unconcealed eagerness Mrs. Swink twisted herself in her tight and
too-embracing chair, for the moment forgetting, seemingly, that I was
a hearing person. "You can't afford to miss a chance like that.
You'll meet the best people. Harrie can stay to dinner. I'll get
tickets for the theatre."

"He won't come to dinner. I asked him. Says he's sick." The girl's
lips curled slightly. "He's always sick when--"

"Madeleine!" The sudden change in Mrs. Swink's voice was beyond
belief, and with a shrug of her shoulders the girl again looked out
of the window. I was making discoveries with unexpected rapidity,
discoveries that were filling me with speculation and promising
conclusions that were at variance with Selwyn's, and for a moment the
uncomfortable silence, following the sharp ejaculation, was unbroken
by me in the realization of my unwilling participation in a bit of
family revelation, and also by inability to think of anything to say.