met. It was quite reasonable then, when, last week, Adora, encountering Mary in a Lenox Avenue music-shop, remarked that she looked peaked, that too close confinement in the library where she worked was not good for her health, invited her to spend a week-end at her country place on Long Island, for Mary to accept the invitation not only gratefully, but even with alacrity.
She recalled now, however, that certain of her friends, without saying very much, had suggested, perhaps with looks rather than words, that she might find the experiment distasteful. However that might be, Mary, her word once given, had kept it.
She had been here since Friday. It was now Sunday afternoon and several automobiles full of late arrivals had been welcomed with a dance, for which a celebrated jazz-band had been imported from New York. These late-comers had done nothing to dispel the atmosphere of the previous days. Rather, they had enhanced it. One party which had driven down in a great Packard announced its advent by tossing sundry empty gin bottles out into the drive. Another case of this favourite beverage, however, had immediately been opened in their honour. Gin, indeed, flowed as freely as if there had been a natural spring of it, while whisky, Scotch, rye, and Bourbon, was almost equally plentiful. So the petting continued, petting which, in some instances, with the amount of evidence under her eyes, seemed to
