hospitality and the housekeeping it involved had long since
become a bore to her; like many others in her set, she had
learned to square her obligations through the convenience of her
husband's club. The hospitality there entailed no other bother
than paying the bills. "Just dinner at the club, and the theatre
afterward."

She stripped off her long gloves and dropped them to the floor
beside her carriage slippers. Again her husband studied her,
almost covertly, one might have thought.

"Any one there?" Willoughby began absently to pick at the edges
of the papers on his desk.

She shook her head. "No one you'd care about, I think. There were
only three tables besides mine. Mrs. Chardon and her daughter
with some of her young friends, and then--" Mrs. Willoughby
closely inspected one of her rubies. "The Severances are back in
town, Harmon. He and his sister were there with Hudson Mills and
his wife."

"Severance--with MILLS!" cried her husband, lifting his head
alertly. It was not often that Mrs. Willoughby's talk with him
evoked such instant attention. "See here, Stella, are you sure it
was Severance?"

"Sure? Sure whether it was Severance? Why, of course I am!" she
answered petulantly. She and her husband had never discussed the
man, and it seemed a late day now to begin. "What in the world
is--?" she began, and then desisted. Willoughby, slouched down in