Mary something which might be called by an uglier name. There were, to be sure, sporadic parties at bridge or pinocle at little tables in several of the rooms in the spacious house, but after a time these were certain to end in a row about money or the desire on the part of some of the gamblers to return to the delights of amorous embraces.
Mary tried to feel that she was not a prig. She tried to assure herself that she might herself enjoy such attentions under more favourable circumstances. She tried to explain to herself that she was selective and not an exhibitionist. However that might be, she was obliged to confess that she was thoroughly out of harmony with her present environment.
At any rate, she mused, it's nobody's fault but my own. I should have had sense enough not to come. Anyway I won't be rude. I suppose I can manage to evade that old satyr for another sixteen hours without being silly or screaming for help—the others would only laugh, in any case, if I did that—and tomorrow I'll be back in my room in Harlem, just as poor as ever, but, thank God, a trifle more intelligent. I won't do just this again in a hurry.
She shook off her sombre mood, almost with a conscious movement of her shoulders, determining to think of impersonal matters. After all, she decided, with a kind of voluntary optimism, the view from this window is superb. In a pool below, shad-
