"Wait till we're alone," whispered Wright, mysteriously. "I could a tale unfold--! Enough to turn your hair grey. Broken hearts all over the place--he just stepped on 'em. Anonymous letters, begging for a lock of hair or an old glove! There have been times when your husband, Madame, has been forced to assume a disguise!" "You colossal idiot," said Bill amiably. "Don't listen to him, Mavis," urged Bill's best friend. "Listen to me instead!" "I'm willing to be convinced," I answered. "And now that you're both on your second cigarette, shall we walk about the place a little? Bill," I went on, turning to him, very sweetly, "would you mind running to my room and getting my big, lavender shade hat--? It's right on the bureau." For a moment I thought that he would shake me. I knew he wanted to. But, instead, he swung obediently away and took his revenge in a careless "All right, dear!" as he went off. "Isn't he a peach!" mused Wright aloud, watching admiringly the broad-shouldered figure across the room. "You've known him long?" I asked, in order to avoid answering. "Roommates at Princeton," he replied. "Those were the good old days! There never was a more popular man in college than old Bill! I basked in reflected glory all the time. He was always the King Pin among us, whether it was football, or writing skits, or drumming the piano." "You must have a lot in common," I suggested, "especially your poetry--" Wright's round, blue eyes grew rounder than ever. "He's told you!" he gasped. "Certainly," I said, smiling to cover the pain in my heart, "did you think he could keep it from me? Besides, I half-guessed it all the time." "I told Bill that," said my guest, triumphantly, and then, as Bill emerged from my room, gingerly carrying the hat, as if it were a species of lavender lydite, "Well Richard Warren, I suppose by now your wife is your severest critic!" The hat fluttered from Bill's grasp. I shrieked. But he caught it again deftly. "Here you are," he said, handing it to me, and went on, "My kindest critic, you mean, but--my critic always." "What do you think of the new book?" asked Wright of me, as stopping only to collect Peterkins, we went from the house, down the long avenue of palms. "I've only seen a bit, but I tell him it's better than the first--surer, more mature, bigger in every way." "She hasn't seen it," answered Bill, hastily. "I don't want her to for a while yet." "Oh," Wright nodded understandingly, "I see." Just what he saw was beyond me, but I said, with a little sigh, "I'm so impatient--" "You couldn't be that," said my husband, "not even when it comes to my new book." "Very pretty," observed Wright, regarding us both, impartially. "Isn't she?"