"Um!" muttered Thayor.

"Can, I get you anything, sir?"

"No, thank you, Blakeman. I have just left the Club."

"A dinner of twenty, eh?" continued Thayor, as Blakeman disappeared
with his coat and hat--"our fourth dinner party this week, and Alice
never said a word to me about it." Again he glanced at the names
of the men upon the ten diminutive envelopes, written in an angular
feminine hand; most of them those of men he rarely saw save at his own
dinners. Suddenly his eye caught the name upon the third envelope from
the end of the orderly row.

"Dr. Sperry again!" he exclaimed, half aloud. He opened it and his
lips closed tight. The crested card bore the name of his wife. As he
dropped it back in its place his ear caught the sound of a familiar
figure descending the stairway--the figure of a woman of perhaps
thirty-five, thoroughly conscious of her beauty, whose white arms
flashed as she moved from beneath the flowing sleeves of a silk
tea-gown that reached to her tiny satin slippers.

She had gained the hall now, and noticing her husband came slowly
toward him.

"Where's Margaret?" Thayor asked, after a short pause during which
neither had spoken.

The shoulders beneath the rose tea-gown shrugged with a gesture of
impatience.