Her dark, brooding eyes swept the table with its profusion of silver and cut glass, its affectation of candle-light when the world without was a blaze of sunshine. She looked at Uncle Ranny, with his nervous, twitching lips and restless, dissatisfied eyes; at Aunt Flo, delicate, affected, futile; at Harold Phipps, easy, polished, serene. What possible chance would there be of rousing people like that to sympathy for poor, visionary Papa Claude? For three days the dread of having to fulfil her promise had hung over her like a pall. Now that the time was approaching, the mere thought of it made her head hot and her hands cold. "Cheer up, Nell!" her uncle rallied her. "Don't let your misdeeds crush you. You'll be in high favor again by the time you get back from Baltimore." "Are you sharing my unpopularity with the family?" asked Harold. Eleanor confessed that she was. "I've been in disgrace ever since my party," she said. "Did Uncle Ranny tell you the way we shocked the aunties?" "I did," said Mr. Ranny; "also the way sister Isobel looked when little Kittie Mason shook the shimmy. It's a blessing mother did not see her; I veritably believe she would have spanked her." "A delicious household," pronounced Harold. "What a pity they have banished me. I should so love to put them in a play!" "But I wouldn't let you!" Eleanor cried, so indignantly that the other three laughed. "Neither bond nor free," Harold said, pursing his lips and lifting his brows. "A little pagan at home and a puritan abroad. How are we going to emancipate her, Ran?" "You needn't worry," said Mrs. Ranny, lazily lighting her cigarette. "Eleanor is a lot more subtle than any one thinks; she'll emancipate herself before long." Eleanor was grateful to Aunt Flo. She was tired of being considered an ingenue. She wanted to be treated with the dignity her twenty years demanded. "I have a plan for her," said Harold, with a proprietary air. "Who knows but this time next year she will be playing in 'Phantom Love'?" Eleanor's wandering thoughts came to instant attention. "Is there a part I could play?" she asked eagerly, leaning across the table with her chin on her clasped hands. Harold watched her with an amused smile. "What would you say if I told you I had written a role especially for you? Would you dare to take it?" Eleanor closed her eyes and drew a breath of rapture. "_Would_ I? There isn't anything in heaven or earth that could prevent me!" "Mrs. Bartlett," said the trim maid, "there's a young man at the front door." The conversation hung suspended while Mrs. Ranny inquired concerning his mission. "It's the young man that brings messages from the office, ma'am." "Oh, it must be Quin," said Mr. Ranny, rising and going into the hall. "Did you want to see me about something?"