"And I thought you were lazy," said Sidney, finding herself, for the
first time in their friendship, curiously inclined to keep the
conversation personal, this warm June morning. It was a thing
extremely difficult to do, with Barry. "You certainly gave me that
impression," she said.

"Yes; but that was two months ago," said Barry, off guard. A second
later he changed the topic abruptly by asking, "Did your roses
come?"

"All of them," answered Sidney pleasantly. And vaguely conscious of
mischief in the air, but led on by some inexplicable whim, she
pursued, "Do you mean that it makes such a difference to you, Rogers
being gone?"

Barry trimmed the four sides of a clipping with four clips of his
shears.

"Exactly," said he briefly. He banged a drawer shut, closed a book
and laid it aside, and stuck the brush into his glue-pot. "Getting
enough of dinner parties?" he asked then, cheerfully.

"Too much," said Sidney, wondering why she felt like a reprimanded
child. "And that reminds me: I am giving two dinners for the Von
Praags, you know. I can't manage everybody at once; I hate more than
ten people at a dinner. And you are asked to the first."

"I don't go much to dinners," Barry said.