Millicent picked up a lip-stick, and toyed with it. She glanced up at the top of her mirror. There she kept a curious record. Drawn on the level of the glass with the lip-stick, were three small hearts. A photograph almost hid them. They were initialed--E.P., O.W., S.H. She picked up her handkerchief, and rubbed out the last one. She was tired of Stewart--he would be dropped; in the cool, summary manner which was the essence of Millicent. Eddie, and Orme Waldon would remain. Eddie was always beneficial--he played up so well when she wanted compliments. Orme had a car which she could command, with him or without him; and that was very useful. When she had erased the last heart she drew a new one, larger and apart; the photograph would completely hide it. She initialed it T.S., and then she sat regarding it--he had been so pointedly disinterested! Ah, but he would learn servility; others had, before him. * * * * * After a few days, the members of the general “crowd” had come to see that through accident or design Tommy and Millicent were usually together, when both were at any given place at the same time. There were comments; some caustic, some foolish, some wise: Carl, for instance, was irritatingly derisive. “I told you she’d take you in!” he told Tommy; and when Tommy serenely denied any unusual interest, he agreed, with the reservation--“That’s all right, for _now_, you sweet idiot, but you don’t appreciate what Millicent can do, in ten days. Just wait!” On Sunday afternoons a heterogeneous crowd was wont to drift over to the Grants’, to piece together the gossip of the week. At supper-time they regularly went through the ritual of expressing formal astonishment at the lateness of the hour, and then reluctantly accepting the expected invitation to stay and partake of a buffet-supper. When Carl and Tommy arrived they found the usual assembly. For half the afternoon Millicent ignored Tommy, simulating a deep interest in Eddie Pearson’s stuttered and imperfect rendition of all the jokes in the past week’s Orpheum bill. Eddie was one of those people who insist upon showing you how excellently they can imitate the comedian.... Tommy, on the couch, was amiably quarreling with Barbara Peart over the literary merits of modern literature. Barbara held serious and decided views; Tommy didn’t care a damn either way; the subject bored him so that it was an effort to be polite. Millicent finally extricated herself from Eddie’s imperfectly remembered humor with scant courtesy, and sat down beside Tommy. There was satisfaction in taking him away from Barbara, anyway. Thereafter she directed the conversation--to herself, inevitably.