the other people. Alice received her coldly. She was a tall, blonde woman, with a very pretty figure, and large, deer-like, rather vacant eyes. Dinner was instantly announced by the Japanese butler. Teresa was taken in by a man she liked—a young architect with a passion for philosophy.
She sat at the left of the host, a man of middle age, who liked to be jolly, but was usually handicapped. Opposite her was a woman of fifty, with the hard face of the society hack, a high collar of pearls and diamonds, a very low-cut gown, and an air of not knowing exactly where she found herself. Alice had this lady's husband at her right, and Basil at her left. Basil had taken in Mary Addams. Then there were two extra men, for Alice believed in a preponderance of the male element. The one opposite, next Mary Addams, Teresa knew she had seen somewhere; she gave him a bow and smile, and then recollected him—he was the Englishman whom Basil had brought home to that unlucky dinner. On her own side of the table, beyond Page, the architect, she caught a glimpse of an individual in an unstarched shirt-front and a large tie.
Talk burst out at once. The dining-room was gloomy—all done in peacock-blue, with no lights except those on the table, and two or three dull silver electric globes in the ceiling.
"It's Alice's idea of a summer night," mur-
