Eveleth paused on the lower steps of the stairs.

"Where is George?"

She could not keep the tone of anxiety out of her voice, but Diane
answered, with ready briskness:

"George? I don't know. Hasn't he come home?"

"You must know he hasn't come home. Weren't you together?"

"We were together till--let me see!--whose house was it?--till after the
cotillon at Madame de Vaudreuil's. He left me there and went to the
Jockey Club with Monsieur de Melcourt, while I drove on to the
Rochefoucaulds'."

She turned away toward the dining-room, but it was impossible not to
catch the tremor in her voice over the last words. In her ready English
there was a slight foreign intonation, as well as that trace of an Irish
accent which quickly yields to emotion. Standing at the table in the
dining-room where refreshments had been laid, she poured out a glass of
wine, and Mrs. Eveleth could see from the threshold that she drank it
thirstily, as one who before everything else needs a stimulant to keep
her up. At the entrance of her mother-in-law she was on her guard again,
and sank languidly into the nearest chair. "Oh, I'm so hungry!" she
yawned, pulling off her gloves, and pretending to nibble at a sandwich.
"Do sit down," she went on, as Mrs. Eveleth remained standing. "I should
think you'd be hungry, too."

"Aren't you surprised to see me sitting up, Diane?"