THE morning after a party in her own house Pauline Manford always accorded herself an extra half-hour's rest; but on this occasion she employed it in lying awake and wearily reckoning up the next day's tasks. Disenchantment had succeeded to the night's glamour. The glamour of balls never did last: they so quickly became a matter for those domestic undertakers, the charwomen, housemaids and electricians. And in this case the taste of pleasure had soured early. When the doors were thrown open on the beflowered supper tables not one of the hostess's family was left to marshal the guests to their places! Her husband, her daughter and son, her son's wife--all had deserted her. It needed, in that chill morning vigil, all Pauline's self-control to banish the memory. Not that she wanted any of them to feel under any obligation--she was all for personal freedom, self-expression, or whatever they called it nowadays--but still, a ball was a ball, a host was a host. It was too bad of Dexter, really; and of Jim too. On Lita of course no one could count: that was part of the pose people found so fascinating. But Jim--Jim and Nona to forsake her! What a ridiculous position it had put her in--but no, she mustn't think of that now, or those nasty little wrinkles would creep back about her eyes. The masseuse had warned her... Gracious! At what time was the masseuse due? She stretched out her hand, turned on the light by the bed (for the windows were still closely darkened), and reached for what Maisie Bruss called the night-list: an upright porcelain tablet on which the secretary recorded, for nocturnal study, the principal "fixtures" of the coming day. Today they were so numerous that Miss Bruss's tight script had hardly contrived to squeeze them in. Foremost, of course, poor Exhibit A, moved on from yesterday; then a mysterious appointment with Amalasuntha, just before lunch: something urgent, she had hinted. Today of all days! Amalasuntha was so tactless at times. And then that Mahatma business: since Dexter was inflexible, his wife had made up her mind to appeal to the Lindons. It would be awkward, undoubtedly--and she did so hate things that were awkward. Any form of untidiness, moral or material, was unpleasant to her; but something must be done, and at once. She herself hardly knew why she felt so apprehensive, so determined that the matter should have no sequel; except that, if anything _did_ go wrong, it would upset all her plans for a rest-cure, for new exercises, for all sorts of promised ways of prolonging youth, activity and slenderness, and would oblige her to find a new Messiah who would tell her she was psychic.