Dodo"—this again was a relationship founded only on affection—"he said your price was beyond rubies. So I said 'What price rubies?' and as he didn't understand nor did I, we parted. What a lot of people there seems to be here! I came to talk to Nadine. Oh, there she is. Or would it be better taste if I didn't? Perhaps it would. I shall go to bed instead."

"Then what you call taste is what I call peevishness," said Nadine succinctly.

"I don't understand. What is better peevishness, then?"

"You take me at the foot of the letter," said she. "You see what I mean."

"Yes. I see that you mean 'literally.' But in[Pg 27] any case there are too many people, chiefly upside down from where I am. That's Esther, isn't it, and Berts? Tommy is the right way up. Nadine upside down also."

[Pg 27]

Esther got up.

"Why, of course, if you want to talk to Nadine, we'll go," she said.

Bertie gave a long sigh.

"I shall lie here," he said, "like the frog-footman on and off for days and days—"

"So long as you lie off now," said Hugh.

Bertie got up.

"You can all come to my room if you like," he said, "as long as you don't mind my going to bed. Good-night, Nadine; thanks awfully for letting me lie down. It has made me quite sleepy."

Hugh Graves went to the window as soon as they had gone and threw it open.

"The room smells of smoke and stale epigrams," he said in explanation.

"That's not very polite, Hugh," said she, "since I have been talking most, and not smoking least. But I suppose you will answer that you didn't come here to be polite."

In a moment, even as the physical atmosphere of the room altered, so also did the spiritual. It seemed to Nadine that she and Hugh took hands and sailed through the surface foam and brightnesses in which they had been playing into some place 

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