I am sure that Will and the members of the company watched the "houses" from the peep-holes in the curtain as eagerly as the star and the management kept an eye on the box-office receipts. "How was the house last night?" was the daily question I put to Will with his morning coffee. Finally we settled back with the assurance of a season's run ahead of us. I set in motion the plans I had outlined for myself. I induced Will to study languages with me for a time, but his hours were so uncertain that he finally dropped out. Music was a passion with me. I went through a whole season of the Opera treat I had promised myself for years. Will was fond of music, too, and sometimes we would go together to the Sunday night concerts at the Metropolitan. Of course there were still the dinner-parties and the supper-parties and matinées for benevolent purposes. Will seemed to have tired of the parties and spent more and more of his time at the Lambs. He never came home to supper after the theatre nowadays. I missed my little talks with him across the supper table. There was no longer any need to throw cold water in my face to keep myself fresh until his coming. Sometimes when I was wakeful I would hear him come in; it was generally daylight. Sometimes, on Sunday morning, if he found me awake he would hand me the Morning Telegram. No wonder they call it "the chorus girl's breakfast." Among other things I did not like about the Lambs was that irritating way the telephone boy had of asking "Who's calling, please." Will said they do that at all Clubs. CHAPTER VIII By this time I had my own little _coterie_ and I prided myself it was a cosmopolitan gathering which graced our little apartment on the second and third Sundays of the month. There was so much to learn, the interests were so diversified that I eagerly welcomed members of other professions than our own--if they were worth while. Our sculptor friend brought men who had travelled in remote parts of the world; they in turn brought others. We numbered several army and navy officers, a German scientist, men and women journalists, a cartoonist and an artist, women engaged in Settlement work and the quaint old French professor who taught me the language. When we could overcome his diffidence he was a mine of information. He had witnessed the Commune of Paris and was working on a book on that subject. It is an interesting study to divide the _pastiche_ from the real. The time-killers and the curious soon dropped out. It was not difficult to limit our _coterie_ to the dimensions of our home. I could not but contrast my simple "at homes" with those of the Dingleys. We had received several cards for their Sundays and Will said we must go to at least one of them. The Dingleys had sprung from humble beginnings. They were jocosely referred to as the "ten, twent' and thirt's."