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 was mistress would perhaps be unconventional, but it would certainly never be happy-go-lucky.

The party romped on. Peg whisked away to the kitchen and came back wheeling a tea cart laden with, as she said, "alleged rarebit." It proved edible, and everyone ate voraciously, sitting on chair arms or on pillows on the floor. Amy was replaced at the piano by Larry Vane, who struck a Paderewski pose and intolerable discords until removed by force. Cecily, finding a dilapidated ukulele, coaxed melody from it and danced alone to her own accompaniment—graceful, and beautifully un-selfconscious. Dinny Purviance, draped in a couch cover and topped by a huge parchment lamp shade, recited the classic of the Drunk and the Pig, with gestures made effective by a sandwich with a bite out of it which he flourished in his hand. Everyone became involved in a warm argument on the subject of spiritualism, which terminated, as such arguments invariably terminate, in the darkening of the room and the tipping of a table, followed immediately by fresh argument as to who tipped it: "Scott did. I felt him." . . . "Why I did not, you egg, you did it yourself!" . ..

"I hate to take you away," Jock said to Cecily at half past five, "but I've got to shove off. Ought to be at the Tavern on time if I can—this is our last night there, you know."

"I should say I do know! You've talked about nothing else for weeks!"

They made their adieux, Jock in a lazy "So long, everybody," Cecily more punctiliously and personally. They crowded about her, and she sealed twelve new friendships with a smile and a gay word or two apiece. Voices shrieking things after them followed them to the elevator, and when they were again on the street