"He means it for a joke," said Mrs. Wilstead, who had been peering at him curiously. "He is going in for eccentricity, or else the success of his play has gone to his head." "Not a bit of it," replied Martin with unmoved smiles. "Lolita Withers is at present an obviously pretty girl. Any one would so consider her." "Obviously pretty." Mrs. Wilstead had found her tongue by this time, and acrid and scoffing it proved. "That skinny, ineffective little Lolita Withers! Dull-eyed, anaemic, with stooping shoulders and wispy light hair." "She looks like a dream of spring," said Wallace, helping himself lavishly to tea and cakes. "A sort of an evanescent beauty. Truly, yes," he affirmed, "she's been to Maud Carmine and Perdita Hepworth." He gave a great burst of laughter. "If they can make any one believe that Lolita Withers is pretty," said Mrs. Hewston dazedly, "they are indeed benefactors of the race." "Perdita Hepworth is a genius, a wizard. I always said so." Alice announced this with a sort of triumphant conviction. "She could make Aaron's rod blossom like the rose." "But where did they get the money?" Mrs. Hewston's mind turned always to practical things. "If Dita really quarreled with Cress, would he--?" "Maud's money." Martin spoke with the assurance of one possessing authoritative knowledge. "Cresswell Hepworth! Oh, no, he went off in a terrible huff because the girls laid their plans before him and told him what they were going to do. At least," he amended, "that is the idea I got from the little that Maud has occasionally told me. Yes, it's Maud's money; but they'll lose nothing, plucky girls! Double and treble it, more likely. They've already had an overwhelming success." "I'm going to them," cried Isabel Hewston excitedly. "If they are so wonderful they ought to be able to make me look slender without my having to go to all the bother of being really slender." "You'll have to stand in line then; that old Mrs. Peter Huff is jumping for joy and calling down blessings on their heads because they've literally transformed her three ugly daughters. Maud said they were splendid material, and Dita did wonders with them. The old lady hopes to get them married off now." "Alice! When can we go to them?" Mrs. Hewston's voice was trembling with excitement. "I can't go now." There was a distinct fall of disappointment in Alice Wilstead's voice. "The truth is, I'm going to California with the Warrens the first of next week. Why, what is that?" There was a sound of some one wheezing, puffing, muttering without the door, and then the curtain was violently jerked aside and Mr. Hewston entered. His hair stood up white and ruffled about his head, his face was of a much livelier crimson than usual, and he was puffing out his lips as if blowing fire and smoke from his mouth. In one hand he was tightly clasping a newspaper. "Willoughby! My dear!" his wife rose in consternation. "What is it, what has happened?"