"I've a bit more news," he replied seriously. "I was so pleased with the Postlewaite matter it clean escaped me, for the moment.--I've just heard that Amherst is back." "Here--in town!" she cried. "So I understand--he arrived this morning." She held up her hands helplessly. "What a complication!" she breathed.--"What will Lorraine do, do you suppose?" "I give it up," he replied, with a shake of his head. "No one can depend on him for anything--but if he is still of the mind he was this afternoon, it would be just as well for him and Amherst not to meet." "We're waiting, Gladys!" came Mrs. Burleston's voice. "Coming!" Gladys replied.--"You'll do your best to keep them apart, Montague?" "Yes--I'll do what I can; but I may have a devil of a job, and then not succeed. Lorraine's himself again, you know--which means he is as erratic as a crazy man. However----" "Where is he now, do you know?" "He said he was tired and was going home." "Then let us hope he'll stay there until morning," she said. "And that some kind friend won't call him up and put him wise," he added--and they went back to the game. "Montague, will you either stay here or go away--_far_ away, that is," Dorothy Tazewell requested--"down to the grill-room would be about right." "Wherefore this happy consideration!" Pendleton laughed. "So we can continue our game, stupid, without the attendant interruption of having Gladys desert us every time she's dummy." "By which I might infer----" Pendleton began. "Whatever you wish that is complimentary--or otherwise; it's a free for all.--Two royal!" and she smiled at him with roguish demureness. "I'm squelched," said he, with affected sadness. "I _was_ just about to ask you all to take dinner with me here this evening, but of course it is out of the question now. I'm awfully sorry it happened, you know. It's the----" "Go 'long with you, Montague!" Mrs. Burleston exclaimed. "How can one remember the cards while that sirenly seductive voice of yours is playing on the diapason." "Yes, run along, Montague!" agreed Dorothy--"or you'll have to pay my losses; it's a quarter of a cent a point, too, and I can't afford to lose." "Me for the tall timber," he declined. "Mercy! Montague," Gladys exclaimed. "One would think you were Warwick Devereux." "I was wondering if anyone would recognize the impersonation!" Pendleton laughed.--"What is it," he asked, as a servant stopped beside him and stood at attention. "Mr. Cameron is waiting in the grill-room, sir," the man replied. Pendleton nodded in dismissal. "How about having the dinner to-morrow evening?" he asked.--"Good! That's very nice indeed--will seven-thirty be convenient? All right--seven-thirty it is." The grill was comfortably filled; the talk was of but one subject:--Amherst's return, what it signified and what would follow.