possible attire, sitting in the curly-maple rocking-chair, her
slippered feet--she had a premonition of rheumatism--elevated on the
collapsible stool she carried about with her; and Helena and Gregory
hanging on her knees. Gregory, of course, had tomorrow's task easily in
hand, with another star for a day's good conduct in school; but Helena,
shining in the gold and flush of her radiant inattention, would know
nothing. Helena, Lee Randon acknowledged, spelled atrociously. If it
weren't for the clubs and his spiked shoes he'd turn and go home
directly, himself supervise the children's efforts at education. But
Fanny did it much better than he; Helena and Gregory were closer to
her; while they volunteered endless personal and trivial admissions to
her, he had to ask them, detail by detail, what they were doing.

After he had changed his shoes and secured the latticed steel door of
his locker he went up to the main room of the clubhouse, where, on the
long divan before the open fire, he found Peyton Morris lounging with
Anette Sherwin by a low tea table. The hot water, they informed Lee
comfortably, was cold, inviting him by implication to ring for more;
and then they returned to the conversation he had interrupted. Anette
said:

"I asked her from Friday till Monday, over the dance, you see; but she
wired she couldn't be sure. They are going to begin rehearsing at any
minute, and then shoot--it is shoot, isn't it?--the picture. What did
she tell you at the Plaza?"

"The same thing," Peyton replied moodily. "I only saw her for a scrappy
dinner; she couldn't even wait for coffee, but rushed up to a
conference with her director."