Half an hour later as they were sitting together in the library Roxanne reissued from the kitchen, bearing before her a pan of biscuits. Jeffrey and Harry rose. “They’re beautiful, dear,” said the husband, intensely. “Exquisite,” murmured Harry. Roxanne beamed. “Taste one. I couldn’t bear to touch them before you’d seen them all and I can’t bear to take them back until I find what they taste like.” “Like manna, darling.” Simultaneously the two men raised the biscuits to their lips, nibbled tentatively. Simultaneously they tried to change the subject. But Roxanne undeceived, set down the pan and seized a biscuit. After a second her comment rang out with lugubrious finality: “Absolutely bum!” “Really----” “Why, I didn’t notice----” Roxanne roared. “Oh, I’m useless,” she cried laughing. “Turn me out, Jeffrey--I’m a parasite; I’m no good----” Jeffrey put his arm around her. “Darling, I’ll eat your biscuits.” “They’re beautiful, anyway,” insisted Roxanne. “They’re--they’re decorative,” suggested Harry. Jeffrey took him up wildly. “That’s the word. They’re decorative; they’re masterpieces. We’ll use them.” He rushed to the kitchen and returned with a hammer and a handful of nails. “We’ll use them, by golly, Roxanne! We’ll make a frieze out of them.” “Don’t!” wailed Roxanne. “Our beautiful house.” “Never mind. We’re going to have the library repapered in October. Don’t you remember?” “Well----” Bang! The first biscuit was impaled to the wall, where it quivered for a moment like a live thing. Bang!... When Roxanne returned, with a second round of cocktails the biscuits were in a perpendicular row, twelve of them, like a collection of primitive spear-heads. “Roxanne,” exclaimed Jeffrey, “you’re an artist! Cook?--nonsense! You shall illustrate my books!” During dinner the twilight faltered into dusk, and later it was a starry dark outside, filled and permeated with the frail gorgeousness of Roxanne’s white dress and her tremulous, low laugh. --Such a little girl she is, thought Harry. Not as old as Kitty. He compared the two. Kitty--nervous without being sensitive, temperamental without temperament, a woman who seemed to flit and never light--and Roxanne, who was as young as spring night, and summed up in her own adolescent laughter. --A good match for Jeffrey, he thought again. Two very young people, the sort who’ll stay very young until they suddenly find themselves old. Harry thought these things between his constant thoughts about Kitty. He was depressed about Kitty. It seemed to him that she was well enough to come back to Chicago and bring his little son. He was thinking vaguely of Kitty when he said good-night to his friend’s wife and his friend at the foot of the stairs. “You’re our first real house guest,” called Roxanne after him. “Aren’t you thrilled and proud?” When he was out of sight around the stair corner she turned to Jeffrey, who was standing beside her resting his hand on the end of the banister.