The clatter grew softer and softer till at last all was still. As Gay opened the door, Fancy heard a roar that increased steadily until it became a wild hullabaloo. Looking in, she saw the six seated about the table, the coffee glasses jumping madly with the percussion. The noise was like the multitudinous charge of troopers. Then the tumult died slowly away, the patter grew softer and softer, ending in a sudden hush as seven faces looked up at her. Gay P. Summer’s advent was greeted with frowns, but Fancy gathered an instant acclaim from twelve critical eyes. She stepped boldly into the room and shed the radiance of her smile upon the company. "I guess this is where I live, all right!" she announced. "I’ve been gone a long time, haven’t I? Never mind the introductions. I’m Fancy Gray, drifter; welcome to our fair city!" They let loose a cry of welcome, and Dougal, rising, opened a place for her between his chair and Maxim’s. "I’m _for_ her!" He hailed her with a good-natured grin. "She’s the right shape. Come and have coffee!" "I accept!" said Fancy Gray. Gay’s reception was by no means as cordial as hers, which had been immediate and spontaneous at the sound of her caressing, jovial voice and the sight of her genial smile, which seemed to embrace each separate member of the party. They made grudging room for him beside Elsie, who gave him a cold little hand. Mabel bowed politely. "Where’d you get her, Gay?" said Starr. "You’re improving. She looks like a pretty good imitation of the real thing." "Oh, I’ll wash, all right," said Fancy. Gay P. proudly introduced her to the company. He played her as he might play a trump to win the seventh trick. Indeed, without Fancy’s aid, he would have received scant welcome at that exclusive board. Many and loud were the jests at Summer’s expense while he was away. Many and soft were the jests he had not wit enough to understand when he was present. Philip Starr had, at first sight of him, dubbed him "The Scroyle," and this sobriquet stuck. Gay P. Summer was ill versed in Elizabethan lore, but, had his wit been greater, his conceit would still have protected him. He had already unloaded Fancy, though he was as yet unaware of it. She was taken up with enthusiasm by the men, whom she drew like a magnet. Mabel and Elsie watched her with the keenness of women who are jealous of any new element in their group. It was, perhaps, not so much rivalry they feared, for their place was too well established, as the admittance into that circle of one who would betray a tendency toward those petty feline amenities that only women can perceive and resent.