"How warm and delicious," said Mrs. Balfame brightly, removing her hat and wraps and laying them smoothly on a chair. "I'll telephone and then close my eyes and think of nothing until tea is ready--I know you won't have me in the kitchen. What a blessed relief it will be to hear you sing in your funny old voice after that woman's strident tones." She made short work of telephoning. Mr. Balfame, having "just stepped across the street," she merely left a message for him. Dr. Anna, out in the kitchen, lighted the gas stove, rattled the aluminum ware, and sang in a booming contralto. Mrs. Balfame went through no stage formalities; she neither tiptoed to the door nor listened intently. From the telephone, which was on the desk, she walked over to the strongest looking chair, carried it to the discarded fireplace, mounted and peered into the little cupboard the canny doctor had had built into the old chimney after the furnace was installed. There Dr. Anna kept her experimental drugs, her mother's seed pearls and diamond brooch, and a roll of what she called emergency bills. The vial was almost in the middle of a row of bottles. Mrs. Balfame recognised it at once. She secreted it in the little bag that still hung on her arm, replaced it with another small bottle that had stood nearer the end of the row, closed the door and restored the chair to its proper place. Could anything be more simple? She was too careful of her best tailored suit to lie down, but she arranged herself comfortably in a corner of the davenport and closed her eyes. Soothed by the warmth of the room and the organ tones in the kitchen she drifted into a happy state of somnolence, from which she was aroused by the entrance of her hostess with a tray. She sprang up guiltily. "I had no intention of falling asleep--I meant to set the table at least--" "Those cat naps are what has kept you young and beautiful, while the rest of us have traded complexions for hides." Mrs. Balfame gracefully insisted upon clearing and laying a corner of the table, and the two friends sat down and chatted gaily over their tea and toast and preserves. Dr. Anna's face--a square face with a snub nose and kindly twinkling eyes--beamed as her friend complimented her upon the erudition she had displayed in her reply to the Club guest and added wistfully: "I feel as if I didn't know a thing about this war. Everybody contradicts everybody else, and sometimes they contradict themselves. I'm going over to-morrow" ("going over" meant New York in the Elsinore tongue) "and get all the books that have been printed on the subject, and read up. I do feel so ignorant." "That's a large order. When you've dug through them you'll know less than you could get from the headlines of the 'anti' evening papers. I'll hunt up a list that was given me by a patient who claims to be neutral, if you really want it, and leave it at your house in the morning. It's at the office."