“I don’t blame you, Ethel,” Nora admitted frankly. “If he’d give me a chance I’d fall for him in a minute, but attractive young men never bother about me. The best I can draw is--Monty! I’m beginning to dislike the whole sex.” “Theoretically you are quite right, my dear,” said the maturer Alice; “men are awful things--God bless ’em--but practically, well, some day you’ll explode like a bottle of champagne and bubble all over some man.” “Speaking of champagne,” Nora said after a disbelieving gesture at the prophecy, “I wish I had another of Michael’s purple drinks. He’s a genius.” “Do tell him that,” the fond wife urged. “The very surest way to Michael’s heart is through his buffet. I knew he’d taken to mixing cocktails in a graduated chemist’s glass, but this excursion into the chemistry of drinks is rather alarming. He would have been a most conscientious bartender.” “Does he really drink much?” Nora demanded. “Not when I’m at home,” Alice declared. “Nothing after one. If he goes to bed then he’s all right; if he doesn’t, he sits up till five going the pace that fills. I wouldn’t mind if it made him amusing, but it makes him merely sleepy. But he doesn’t drink nearly as much as most of the men he knows. What makes you think he does, is that he makes such a ceremony out of drinking. I don’t think he enjoys drinking alone. Nora,” she added, “do sit down; you make me dizzy.” “I can’t,” Nora told her. “I always stand up for twenty minutes after each meal. It keeps you thin.” “Does it?” Mrs. Harrington asked eagerly, rising from her comfortable chair. “Does it really? Still, I lost nine pounds abroad!” “Goodness!” Nora cried enviously. “How?” “Buttermilk!” Alice cried triumphantly. “And I walked four miles this morning in a rubber suit and three sweaters, _and_ gained half a pound,” Nora declared disconsolately. “I do wish hips would come in again,” Alice Harrington sighed. “Ah, here come the men,” she said more brightly, as the three entered. Michael was still bearing, with what modesty he could, the encomiums on a purple punch he had brewed after exhaustive laboratory experiments. “It’s delicious,” Denby declared. Michael sighed. “I used to think so until my wife stopped my drinking.” Even Monty seemed cheered by it. “Fine stuff,” he asserted. “I can feel it warming up all the little nooks and crannies.” “Purple but pleasing,” Denby said, with the air of an epigrammatist. “Did they tell you any purple stories?” Michael’s wife demanded. “We don’t know any new stories,” Denby told her; “we’ve been in England.” “Do sit down, all of you,” Alice commanded. “We’ve all been standing up to get thin.” “If they’re going to discuss getting thin and dietetics,” Michael said, “let’s get out.” “Woman’s favorite topic,” Monty remarked profoundly. “But you mustn’t sit down, Alice,” Nora warned, as her hostess seemed about to sink into her chair. “It isn’t twenty minutes!”