It was the morning after one of Richard's off nights, when Edith sat leisurely finishing her late breakfast and reading the head-lines in the morning paper, that her brother put in his belated appearance. "Morning, Ricky," she greeted him cheerfully. "Up for all day?" "I think so," was the doubtful answer. "I'm awfully tired. I'd have been down sooner except that I couldn't decide whether to stay in bed until lunchtime and give up my breakfast, or get up and have my breakfast and give up my rest. Even now I believe I made a mistake, for I'm awfully tired and I don't feel hungry." "You might go back to bed again," Edith suggested helpfully. "No; I'm dressed now, and that would be too much trouble.--I think I'll make my breakfast off a jolly little bottle of Célestin." Edith laughed. "Too much wine last night, Ricky?" Stevens made a wry face. "I'll have to give up dancing or drinking, one or the other," he said emphatically; "it isn't scientific. Wine should be allowed to stand in the stomach just as it ought to stand in the bottle. This idea of churning it up by dancing is all wrong. I'd rather dance while I'm dancing and drink while I'm drinking; but every one else wants to do both things at the same time. It's all wrong.--That Célestin has a beastly bad taste this morning." He examined the bottle critically. "I was afraid the maid had brought me Hunyadi by mistake." "I was in at Marian's yesterday," Edith remarked. "Mr. Hamlen has arrived, and she expects Philip and Billy Huntington at the house over Easter." "Has Hamlen been there yet? He's a melancholy sort,--about as cheerful as a hearse. Feeling as I do this morning I think I'd rather like to see him; but I hope to feel better soon." "No; he hasn't been there yet. Marian tried to get him out for dinner, but some other friends were to dine with her so he wouldn't come." "He's a queer one,--but that reminds me: that Cosden man is in town." "He is?" Edith exclaimed, arresting her coffee-cup on its way to her lips and poising it in mid-air. "Why didn't you tell me before?" "I couldn't until now; it was only yesterday I saw him. He was much more civil than in Bermuda. Wanted to know about you and all that sort of thing. He's going to telephone you before he goes back." "Very kind of him, I'm sure," Edith sniffed. "Perhaps I'll be in and perhaps I won't." "Well that's your affair; you needn't see him on my account. But if you were to ask me, I'd say he's not such a bad sort." "I didn't ask you, Ricky," Edith said significantly, and Stevens, with precedent to guide him, refrained from further discussion of the topic. Yet in spite of the snap in her eyes when she commented on Cosden's inquiry it so happened that she was in when he telephoned, and she was also at home, arrayed in her most fetching afternoon gown, when he called an hour later. Not that he would notice whether she wore gingham or alpaca, she told herself, but she owed it to her self-respect to appear her best.