the gutter as I was--"

"Chateaubriand," he interrupted, "Dante, Velasquez."

"No, not spiritually!" she cried again. "What do you know of the
inferno! Married, you will get fat." Pleydon turned lightly to
Linda:

"As a supreme favor do not, when I ask you, marry me."

This, for Linda, was horribly embarrassing. However, she gravely
promised. The Russian lighted a cigarette; almost she was serene
again. Linda said, "Fatness is awful, isn't it?"

Pleydon replied, "Death should be the penalty. If women aren't
lovely--" he waved away every other consideration.

"And if men have fingers like carrots--" Susanna mimicked him.
Judith, flushed, her hair loosened, approached. "Linda," she
demanded, "do you remember when we ordered the taxi? Was it two or
three?" Markue, at her shoulder, begged her not to consider home.

"I'm going almost immediately," Pleydon said, "and taking your
Linda." His height and determined manner scattered all objections.

Linda, at the entrance to the apartment, found to her great
surprise--in place of the motor she had expected--a small graceful
single-horse victoria, the driver buttoned into a sealskin rug. Deep
in furs, beside Pleydon, she was remarkably comfortable, and she was
soothed by the rhythmic beat of the hoofs, the even progress through