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The following foreday Campaspe found it imperative to employ the telephone twice. First, she called up Paulet to ask him to bring his boiler-mender to luncheon. He was, it was simple to deduce from the timbre of his voice, in a highly shattered mood, as nervous as a race-horse pawing the turf before the tape. Nothing, he assured her, would give him more pleasure than the ability to satisfy her desire, but he happened to be ignorant of the address of his esoteric guest. Should he come alone? The reply to this proposal was a decorous but curt No. Having thus summarily concluded this extremely unsatisfactory interview, Campaspe demanded another number from the recalcitrant operator. Laura Everest was the second person Mrs. Lorillard honoured with her early morning voice. She inquired if Consuelo might lunch with her at the Ritz—Basil, home from school convalescing after a slight illness, was coming too. However much this request may have disturbed Laura, she assented to the plan, and so a little before one the Lorillard motor stopped in front of the East Sixty-eighth Street house, where the Everests made their home, to pick up Consuelo.

Once the child was settled beside her in the car,