Constance went downstairs excited that the wanderer had returned, yet reflecting that she had chosen a most untimely date for her reappearance. She said to herself that she would take a cab, bundle Loretta off to Lincoln Chambers, and conceal the fact of her presence in Benham from Mrs. Wilson until the following day. As she entered the small reception-room, she was shocked by Loretta's appearance. She looked as though she had lived ten years in one. Her cheeks were sunken, her eyes unnaturally bright, and her face wore the aspect of degenerate dissipation. She was more conspicuously dressed than her circumstances warranted, and her clothes appeared crumpled. But her air was jaunty, and she met Constance's solicitous greeting with an appalling gaiety. "Well, I'm back again. I hear you've been hunting for me. I suppose you'll want to know all about it, so I might as well tell you my money's gone. Some of it I lent to my friend--him I went back to--and the rest is spent. We've been in Chicago and New York, and--and I've had the time of my life." She evidently hoped to shock Constance by this bravado; but distressed as the latter was by the painful levity, she took for granted that Loretta was not herself, and that though her speech was fluent she was under the influence of some stimulant, presumably the drug which Dr. Dale had specified. While she was wondering how to deal with the situation and what could be the object of Loretta's visit, the latter supplied the solution to her second quandary. "I've seen all about the big party she's giving to-night. That's why I've come." She paused a moment, then continued in a cunning whisper, as though she were afraid of unfriendly ears: "I want to get a chance to see it--the folk, I mean, and the smart dresses. Lord sake," she added, noticing doubtless the consternation in her hearer's face, "I do believe you thought I was asking to come as one of the four hundred myself. Thanks, but I've left my new ball dress at home. They can tuck me in somewhere behind a curtain; I'd be quiet; or I'd dress as a maid. Manage it for me, Constance, like a decent woman." Her voice cracked a little, and her eyes filled with tears, suggesting a tipsy person. Then suddenly her manner changed; she squared her shoulders and said malevolently, "I'm going to see it anyway. It's a small thing to ask of her who helped to kill my only child." It was a small thing to ask certainly, absurd as the request seemed. Constance reflected that, inopportune as the application was, the decision, as Loretta had intimated, did not rest with her. "I will ask Mrs. Wilson, Loretta," she said, to gain time to think. "She will be home before long."