"If you mean transports--no. Orville's fifty. He's set in his ways. I--I'm nearer thirty-seven than thirty-six. And at that I've only lied one year about my age--don't tell Orville. He's crazy about me. He just follows me around this flat like a--like a child. And I suppose that's really what he is to me now--a kind of big, wonderful child. I have to pamper him, and reason with him, and punish him, and coax, and love, and--tend him. I suppose ten years ago we'd--he'd----" She stopped suddenly, with a little broken cry. "Beck, you're a pig!" Lottie Payson's arms were about Celia. "In her own house, too, and her first party. Really you're too----" A coloured maid stood in the doorway--a South Side Hebe--her ebony face grotesque between the lacy cap and apron with which Celia had adorned her for the day. She made mysterious signals in Celia's direction. "'F yo' ladies come in ev'thin's all--" She smiled; a sudden gash of white in the black. The tantalizing scent of freshly made coffee filled the little flat. They moved toward the dining room, talking, laughing, pretending. "Oh, how pretty!... Cele! A real party! Candles and everything.... What a stunning pattern--your silver. So plain and yet so rich.... My word! Chicken salad! Bang goes another pound!" Chicken salad indeed. Little hot flaky biscuits, too, bearing pools of golden butter within. Great black oily ripe olives. Salted almonds in silver dishes. Coffee with rich yellow cream. A whipped-cream covered icebox cake. "I think we ought to spank Beck and send her from the table. She doesn't deserve this." At five-thirty, as they stood, hatted and ready for the street, chorusing their good-byes in the little hallway, a key clicked in the lock. Orville! They looked a little self-conscious. "Well, well, well! I've run into a harem!" "We haven't left a thing for your dinner. And it was so good." "Not running away because I'm home, are you?" His round face beamed on them. He smelled of the fresh outdoors, and of strong cigars, and of a vaguely masculine something that was a blending of business office and barber's lotion and overcoat. The Reading Club scented it, sensitively. Celia came over to him swiftly, there in the little hall, and slid one arm about his great waist. A plump man, Orville, with a round, kindly, commonplace face. He patted her silken shoulder. She faced the Reading Club defiantly, triumphantly. "What have you girls been talking about, h'mm?" Orville laughed a tolerant chuckling laugh. "You girls. Settled the war yet?" Beck Schaefer threw up her chin a little. "We've been talking about you, if you really want to know." He reeled. "Oh, my God! Cele, did you take the old man's part?" Celia moved away from him then a little, her face flushing. Constraint fell upon the group. Lottie Payson stepped over to him then and put one hand on his broad shoulder. "She didn't need to take your part, Orville. We were all for you." "Except me!" shrilled Beck.