and myself got out of the situation. They howled with mirth over
the feeblest jokes, and when Max told a story without any point
whatever, they all had hysteria. Immediately after dinner Aunt
Selina had begun on the family connection again, and after two
bad breaks on my part, Jim offered to show her the house. The
Mercer girls trailed along, unwilling to lose any of the
possibilities. They said afterward that it was terrible: she went
into all the closets, and ran her hand over the tops of doors and
kept getting grimmer and grimmer. In the studio they came across
a life study Jim was doing and she shut her eyes and made the
girls go out while he covered it with a drapery. Lollie! Who did
the Bacchante dance at three benefits last winter and was
learning a new one called "Eve"!

When they heard Aunt Selina on the second floor, Anne, Dal and
Max sneaked up to the studio for cigarettes, which left Mr.
Harbison to me. I was in the den, sitting in a low chair by the
wood fire when he came in. He hesitated in the doorway.

"Would you prefer being alone, or may I come in?" he asked.
"Don't mind being frank. I know you are tired."

"I have a headache, and I am sulking," I said unpleasantly, "but
at least I am not actively venomous. Come in."

So he came in and sat down across the hearth from me, and neither
of us said anything. The firelight flickered over the room,
bringing out the faded hues of the old Japanese prints on the
walls, gleaming in the mother-of-pearl eyes of the dragon on the
screen, setting a grotesque god on a cabinet to nodding. And it