drawing-room.

"I hope you have disgraced me enough to-night," he said stormily.

"Where's the disgrace, I should like to know, in inviting a couple of
old friends into one's own house?" demanded Saidie aggressively.

Chetwynd promptly turned his back upon her. "I am addressing my
wife," he said frigidly.

"Yes; I would like to see you talking to _me_ in that tone of voice,"
returned his sister-in-law.

"Bella, what have you to say for yourself? Have you no self-respect
whatever, and no consideration for your husband's position?"

"Oh, I'm sick of hearing about your position," said his wife
pettishly. "In the days when you had not any, we were a lot happier.
You didn't turn up your nose at my associates when I was on the
boards at the Band Box! Everything was charming. You laughed then at
what you now call "vulgar," and you thought it good fun, and you
would have taken the property man to your heart if I had told you he
was my brother. But now I am your wife it is quite a different tale.
My friends are too common for you to mix with. By the Lord! I'm not
at all certain whether you think _me_ good enough for you, myself."

"Bella, Bella!"

"Oh! Yes, it is easy enough to look broken-hearted. How dare you turn
my friends out of the place? It is you, not I, who have brought