I began to giggle. “There’s the sound of conjugal home life!” And we sat quiet as mice, listening to the scratch of Nicholas’s latchkey in the front door. He came up the stairs on tiptoe, the ridiculous creature. He entered Eva’s study as if looking in on an invalid. “Sweetheart!” he said lucidly. If ever I saw a man whose heart might burst with its load of pure happiness it was Nicholas Van Suydam. Words--in a case like this? When he did resort to words, he employed the wrong ones. “I hope my little woman is taking good care of herself?” he admonished her tenderly. I fled. I observed that the Van Suydams now embarked upon a course of coddling Eva. Strolling down to the Brevoort for luncheon, I noticed that the maroon brougham waited at the door of the little house in Eleventh Street. Upon a fine afternoon, I was amused at the sight of Eva in the brougham, seated beside her mother-in-law. She looked demure. I fancied that she actually enjoyed the pomp of the brougham with Higginson on the box-seat. She telephoned to ask if I were going to Charles Glidden’s party for a most exalted English woman novelist. “Who--” she almost gurgled--“do you think is going with us? Nick’s mother!” I settled myself comfortably at my end of the line. “Go on; tell me the rest?” “Dinah, that old woman is worthy of praise. She is making a determined effort to see things from my point of view. The now unbroken chain of the Van Suydam family! She hasn’t the slightest desire to see the party, but she considers this the proper time for the family to go out together.” Eva knew how to make the effective entrance; she would be late. But I would not have missed it, as none of us would: we all arrived early, and made excuses for hovering near the door. Florence Quincy whispered to me that she wondered if Eva had been told by some little bird that the exalted one would also be late, thereby stealing her thunder. “Of course you know----?” said Florence. “Ah well, she is at last a Van Suydam!” Molly Underhill said violently: “She is welcome to it!” Molly stuck to me like a burr. Her face was pinched and terrible. “Look here,” she burst out, “I’ve got to talk. Talk about myself. Or I’ll blow up. Do you ever wonder about yourself? Do you ever wonder what it is that holds you back?” “From what?” I demanded impatiently. Desperation flashed out on her face, and ran through her tense, thin body like a poison. “It’s this way. And if you ever repeat it I’ll say you’re lying. I am a ‘good woman’.” I looked at her. There was no obvious retort. She said: “I overheard someone saying it about me, as I came over to speak to you: and it’s true! It’s true!” I bounced off the foot on which I had sat doubled comfortably. “What of it?” She said: “I didn’t want it to get out on me. Oh, hell--where’s a drink?” James Pomeroy hastened to get the drink, and watched her with interest as she tossed it down. “And----?” he encouraged.