"Oh, for goodness' sake--how should I know!" he collapsed at last.
"When my sisters were home from Europe last year, they fixed the whole
blooming place over for--some kind of a party. But I don't know that I
ever specially noticed just what it was that they did to it. Oh, it's
all right, you know!" he attested with some emphasis. "Oh, it's all
right enough--early Jacobean, or something like that--'perfectly
corking,' everybody calls it! But it's so everlasting big, and it
costs so much to run it, and I've lost such a wicked lot of money this
year, that I'm not going to keep it after this autumn--if my sisters
ever send me their Paris address so I'll know what to do with their
things."

Frowningly little Eve Edgarton bent forward.

"'Some kind of a party?'" she repeated in unconscious mimicry. "You
mean you gave a party? A real Christian party? As recently as last
winter? And you can't even remember what kind of a party it was?"
Something in her slender brown throat fluttered ever so slightly.
"Why, I've never even been to a Christian party--in all my life!" she
said. "Though I can dance in every language of Asia!

"And you've got sisters?" she stammered. "Live silk-and-muslin
sisters? And you don't even know where they are? Why, I've never even
had a girl friend in all my life!"

Incredulously she lifted her puzzled eyes to his. "And you've got a
house?" she faltered. "And you're not going to keep it? A real--truly
house? And you don't even know what color it is? You don't even know
what color your own room is? And I know the name of every house-paint
there is in the world," she muttered, "and the name of every