"Yes. Did you fancy--" there were those deep vibrations in Dita's voice which always bespoke some strong emotion, "that I was going to endure the spectacle of Miss Fleming triumphant 'in our midst,' and every one watching to see how I would take it, and predicting that only one course remained open for me and that was with dignity to ignore the incident? Not so. The world will see, and this, amusingly enough, happens to be a fact, that Miss Fleming and Mrs. Hepworth are excellent friends, that Mrs. Hepworth is one of Miss Fleming's warmest admirers, and that she, still speaking of myself, has assisted in Miss Fleming's unparalleled success in New York by designing for her some of the most wonderful costumes ever seen on the stage." "Unparalleled success!" scoffed Maud. "It is rather early to predict that. New York is like a cat. You never know which way it will jump." "It will jump Fuschia Fleming's way," replied Dita confidently. "You haven't met her." "Is she so beautiful then? As beautiful as you?" "Oh, no," Perdita was smoothing out her gloves on her knee. She shook her head decidedly. "Nothing like. She isn't beautiful at all. She's just a slender creature with rather colorless _blonde cendre_ hair and blue eyes." "Oh," Maud was plainly puzzled. "Then what do you mean?" But Perdita only smiled. "Have you and Wallace made up yet?" she asked with what appeared to the other woman striking irrelevance. "Impertinent, I know; but there's a reason?" "No-o-o," said Maud reluctantly and evidently wondering if Dita had suddenly lost her mind. "Then do so at once," advised her business associate. "Do so before he meets Fuschia Fleming." "From what you say." Miss Carmine's chin was high and haughty. "I see no cause for alarm." "No?" Perdita tapped the table with her finger-tips, still inscrutably smiling. Maud rarely permitted herself to become angry, but she did so now. She had never imagined that Perdita could be so aggravating. "Just because Cresswell lost his head about her, you think--" she flashed out. "He didn't," cried Perdita not with bravado, but with a confidence which Maud realized with surprise was genuine. "I hadn't been with her three minutes before I knew that. But take my advice," again her voice fell to that teasing note. "If you really love Wallace make up your differences with him to-day, to-day, before he, a playwright, meets the actress. Then get a new steel chain, one that he can't chew through, and fasten it securely to his collar." CHAPTER XIX HE CALLS ON HIS WIFE Early in April Hepworth returned to New York. It was a gentle, smiling April, inclining more to laughter than to tears and striving to obliterate the memories of March. He arrived one evening and wasted no time in communicating with Perdita. The next day in fact was marked by the passage of notes between them, severely businesslike, and yet models of courtesy.