“I haven’t thought it all out yet, but so many come to me tired out and discouraged, and I think a nice home taken care of by a good creature like my Higgins, let us say, would be a perfect blessing to them. They could go there and rest and study and just think, and perhaps,” she said slowly, as though while she spoke she saw a vision of a tired self, for whom there had been no rest home and no place of retreat, “perhaps a lot of them would pull through in a different way. Now to-day”—she broke her meditative tone short—“I got a letter from a hospital where a poor thing that used to sing with me in New York was dying with consumption—all gone to pieces and discouraged, and there is where your primroses went to—” she nodded to Dan. “Higgins took them. You don’t mind?” And Blair, with a warmth in his voice, touched by her pity more than by her charity, said: “Why, they grew for you, Miss Lane; I don’t care what you do with them.” Letty Lane sank her head on her hands, her elbows leaned on the table. She seemed suddenly to have lost interest even in her topic. She looked around the room indifferently. The orchestra was softly playing _The Dove Song_ from _Mandalay_, and very softly under her breath the star hummed it, her eyes vaguely fixed on some unknown scene. To Dan and to Ruggles she had grown strange. The music, her brilliancy, her sudden indifference, put her out of their commonplace reach. Ruggles to himself thought with relief: “She doesn’t care one rap for the boy anyway, thank God. She’s got other fish to land.” And Dan Blair thought: “It’s my infernal money again.” But he was generous at heart and glad to be of service to her, and was perfectly willing to be “touched” for her poor. Then two or three men came up and joined them. She greeted them indolently, bestowing a word or a look on this one or on that; all fire and light seemed to have gone out of her, and Dan said: “You are tired. I guess I had better take you home.” She did not appear to hear him. Indeed she was not looking at him, and Dan saw Prince Poniotowsky making his way toward their table across the room. Letty Lane rose. Dan put her cloak about her shoulders, and glancing toward Ruggles and toward the boy as indifferently as she had considered the new-comers, who formed a small group around the brilliant figure of the actress, she nodded good night to both Ruggles and Blair and went up to the Hungarian as though he were her husband, who had come to take her home. However, at the door she sufficiently shook off her mood to smile slightly at Dan: “I have had ‘lots of fun,’ and the Scotch broth was great! Thank you both so much.” Until they were up in their sitting-room her hosts did not exchange a word. Then Ruggles took a book up from the table and sat down with his cigar. “I am going to read a little, Dan. Slept all day; feel as wide-awake as an owl.” Dan showed no desire to be communicative, however, to Ruggles’ disappointment, but he exclaimed abruptly: