or make a decorous entry afterward, to play accompaniments.
Fortunately Kitty Meryon sang, in a pinched little soprano, not
nearly so pretty as her silver ripple of talk.

It was when the party had settled down to bridge and I was
standing out, that I ventured to go up to her as she sat knitting
by a window - not unwatched by the quick flash of Lady Meryon's
eyes as I did it.

"I think you hypnotize me, Miss Loring. When I hear anything I
straightway want to know what you will say. Have you heard of
Fitzgerald's death?"

"That is why we are not dancing tonight. Tomorrow the cable will
reach his home in England. He was an only child, and they are the
great people of the village where we are the little people. I
knew his mother as one knows a great lady who is kind to all the
village folk. It may kill her. It is travelling tonight like a
bullet to her heart, and she does not know."

"His father?"

"A brave man - a soldier himself. He will know it was a good
death and that Harry would not fail. He did not at Ypres. He
would not here. But all joy and hope will be dead in that house
tomorrow."

"And what do you think?"

"I am not sorry for Harry, if you mean that. He knew - we all