When Beatrice first knew of Gaylord's return she was inclined to pay no attention to his wife, despite her remarks to Steve. Then Gaylord telephoned, and she had him up for afternoon tea, during which he told her all about it. He was very diplomatic in his undertaking. He pictured Trudy as a diamond in the rough, and in subtle, careful fashion gave Beatrice to understand that just as she had married a diamond in the rough--with a Virginia City grandfather and a Basque grandmother and the champion record of goat tending--so he, too, had been democratic enough to put aside precedent and marry a charming, unspoiled little person with both beauty and ability, and certainly he was to be congratulated since he had been married for love alone, Truletta knowing full well his unfortunate and straitened circumstances.... Yes, her people lived in Michigan but were uncongenial. Still, there was good blood in the family only it was a long ways back, probably as far back as the age of spear fighting, and he relied upon Beatrice, his old playmate, to sympathize with and uphold his course. Secretly annoyed that the tables had been so skillfully turned, yet not willing to admit it to this bullying morsel, Beatrice was obliged to say she would call upon his wife and ask them for dinner the following week. Gaylord fairly floated home, to find Trudy remodelling a dress, scraps of fur and shreds of satin on the floor. "Babseley, she's coming to call to-morrow!" he said, joyfully, hanging up his velours hat and straddling a little gilt chair. "Really? I wish we had a better place. I feel at a disadvantage. If it were a man I wouldn't mind, I could act humble and brave--that sort of dope. But it never goes with a woman; you have to bully a rich woman, and I'm wondering if I can." "I did," he said, his pale eyes twinkling with delight. "It was easy, too. I dragged in O'Valley's orphan-asylum days and all, and how we both married diamonds in the rough. Woof, how she squirmed!" He rose and went to the absurd little buffet, pouring out two glasses of "red ink" and gulping down one of them. "I wish I had O'Valley's money; I'd put away a houseful of this stuff. I'm going to dig up a few bottles at the club--in case of illness." Trudy did not want her glass, so he drank that as well. "You take too much of that stuff," Trudy warned, gathering up her debris; "and when you have taken too much you talk too much." Gaylord rewarded her by consuming a third glass. "Shall we eat out?" She shook her head. "Too expensive. There's no need for it now. I bought some potato salad and I have canned pineapple and sugar cookies." She dumped her work into a basket and flew round the dining room until she summoned Gaylord to join her in a meal laid out on the corner of a dingy luncheon table.