Babylon effect, you know."

"Splendid! But like Babylon, it fell at the wrong time."

For a lively quarter of an hour they discussed people about town,
liberally approving the slandered and denouncing the slanderers. A
still busier quarter of an hour ensued when together they made up
the list of dinner guests. He moved a little writing-table up to
the divan, and she looked on eagerly while he wrote down the names
she suggested after many puckerings of her fair, aristocratic
brow, and then drew lines through them when she changed her mind.
Mrs. DeMille handled her people without gloves in making up
Monty's lists. The dinners were not hers, and she could afford to
do as she pleased with his; he was broad and tall and she was not
slow to see that he was indifferent. He did not care who the
guests were, or how they came; he merely wished to make sure of
their presence. His only blunder was the rather diffident
recommendation that Barbara Drew be asked again. If he observed
that Mrs. Dan's head sank a little closer to the paper, he
attached no importance to the movement; he could not see that her
eyes grew narrow, and he paid no attention to the little catch in
her breath.

"Wouldn't that be a little--just a little pronounced?" she asked,
lightly enough.

"You mean--that people might talk?"

"She might feel conspicuously present."