allowed her more comforts and leisure.
Carmelita did not need more leisure. The truth was that leisure, as Carmelita might have expressed it, had she been Laura, was something Mrs. Dudley Drake had almost nothing else but. Dudley was working too hard to leave much time to cultivate his friends and he had hesitated until the advent of Laura to invite them to his apartment, which was not built for entertaining anyway, because he feared to make work for Carmelita. As for Carmelita's friends, the Hodges, practically the only people she knew in New York, had been abroad most of the time.
On a few occasions Dudley had brought company—men friends with their wives for dinner and bridge, and once, Sanford Drake. But Carmelita was not an excellent hostess in cramped surroundings and most Americans of the business type struck her as singularly drab and uninteresting, likewise their American wives. For one thing the latter took their bridge altogether too seriously. Carmelita was a very indifferent player, wont to chat upon irrelevant and frivolous topics during the playing of the hands, which usually brought the suppressed scorn of the ladies upon her pretty head, though their husbands seemed to like it and encouraged her. The wives were inevitably the reason why they did
