“Bobby, amuse me. I want amusing badly. You look full of fun. Look here, Ethel, you play us a tune and we’ll dance. I must do something!” She sprang up and was pushing the table aside with Bobby’s assistance, when Mrs. Harding stopped her. “For the Lord’s sake, no. We shall wake the people below, and they’re goody-goody and will kick up a devil of a fuss.” She tried to push Marian back on to the sofa, but she resisted. “No, I won’t. You said the four had better split up. So we will. Come along, Bobby, we’ll trot downstairs to my place and leave these two to canoodle by themselves.” * * * * * The next day her head ached rackingly, and she had but dim recollections of what she had done the night before. She remembered getting out a bottle of wine, which she and Bobby had drunk together; remembered having become uproariously merry; then quarrelsome over something he had said or done; then madly merry again; she dimly remembered his embrace and his going away in the dim gray of the early morning, making some excuse about having to go back to his rooms to dress as he had to be at the office early. Her head ached and her eyes were heavy and hot. Her clothes were wildly tossed about the room and one of his white gloves stared at her ridiculously as it lay on the dark carpet. Several sovereigns lay on the dressing table. She rang the bell and the maid brought her tea, which seemed tasteless, and a letter from Maddison, which she threw impatiently aside, unopened. The day seemed endless. Mrs. Harding came down to her in the afternoon. “Well, you’re a nice cup of tea, you are; you demure little monkey, do you often carry on like that?” “If I did, I suppose I shouldn’t have such a beastly headache.” “Don’t know so much about that; I’m a pretty hardened vessel, but a drink too much always gets back at you in the morning, I find. I don’t feel too bright myself, and I don’t look much of a beauty,” she said, looking into the glass. “This life knocks spots out of one, there’s no doubt, but it’s the only one worth living—merry if it is short. Had a hair of the dog that bit? If not, why not? I’ll have one too, he bit me a bit.” “Help yourself; you’ll find it on the sideboard in the next room.” “Feel so cheap as all that? Buck up! Have one with me, and you’ll soon feel spry again.” Marian did not refuse. “What are you doing to-night?” asked Mrs. Harding. “I’m dining out with my old man, who’s just wired me he gets back this afternoon, or we could have had a lark together somewhere.” “I’m not doing anything.”