ALICE. 'Listen to him, Robert!'

COLONEL. 'What he means, my dear, is that you should see him with
elderly ladies.'

ALICE. 'Steve, this to people who know you.' Here something happens to
Amy's skirt. She has opened the door to hear, then in alarm shut it,
leaving a fragment of skirt caught in the door. There, unseen, it
bides its time.

STEVE, darkly, 'Don't be so sure you know me, Alice.'

COLONEL, enjoying himself, 'Let us tell her, Steve! I am dying to tell
her.'

STEVE, grandly, 'No, no.'

COLONEL. 'We mustn't tell you, Alice, because it is a woman's secret--a
poor little fond elderly woman. Our friend is very proud of his
conquest. See how he is ruffling his feathers. I shouldn't wonder you
know, though you and I are in the way to-night.'

But Alice's attention is directed in another direction: to a little
white object struggling in the clutches of a closed door at the back
of the room. Steve turns to see what she is looking at, and at the
same moment the door opens sufficiently to allow a pretty hand to
obtrude, seize the kitten, or whatever it was, and softly reclose the
door. For one second Alice did think it might be a kitten, but she
knows now that it is part of a woman's dress. As for Steve thus
suddenly acquainted with his recent visitor's whereabouts, his mouth