He grinned his best at her. “Sorry, Jane Ellen. But my girl's chucked me and I've chucked my job--and consequently all _my_ choolies are mad--” XXV That night was distinguished by four uneasy meals in different localities. The first was Oliver's and he ate it as if he were consuming sawdust while the Crowes talked all around him in the suppressed voices of people watching a military funeral pass to its muffled drums. Mrs. Crowe was too wise to try and comfort him in public except by silence and even Dickie was still too surprised at Oliver's peevish “Oh _get_ out, kid” when he tried to drag him into their usual evening boxing match to do anything but confide despondently to his mother that he doesn't see why Oliver has to act so _queer_ about any girl. The second meal was infinitely gayer on the surface though a certain kind of strainedness a little like the strainedness in the pauses of a perfectly friendly football game when both sides are too evenly matched to score ran through it. Still, whatever strainedness there was could hardly have been Mrs. Severance's fault. The impeccable Elizabeth showed no surprise at being told she could have the day and needn't be back till breakfast tomorrow. She might have thought that there seemed to be a good deal of rather perishable food in the icebox to be wasted, if Mrs. Severance were going to have dinner out. But Elizabeth had always been one of the rare people who took pride in “knowing when they were suited” and the apartment on Riverside Drive had suited her perfectly for four years. She was also a great deal too clever to abstract any of those fragile viands to take to her widowed sister on Long Island--Mrs. Severance is so good at finding uses for all sorts of odd things--Elizabeth felt quite sure she would find some use or other for these too. Ted Billett certainly found a good deal of use for some of it, thought Mrs. Severance whimsically. It had hardly been a Paolo and Francesca _diner-a-deux_--both had been much too frankly hungry when they came to it and Ted's most romantic remarks so far had been devoted to a vivid appreciation of Mrs. Severance's housekeeping. But all men are very much like hungry little boys every so often, Mrs. Severance reflected. Ted really began to wonder around nine-thirty. At first there had been only coming in and finding Rose just through setting the table and then they had been too busy with dinner and their usual fence of talk to allow for any unfortunate calculations as to how Mrs. Severance could do it on her salary. But what a perfect little apartment--and even supposing all the furniture and so forth were family inheritances, and they fitted each other much too smoothly for that, the mere upkeep of the place must run a good deal beyond any “Mode” salary. Mr. Severance? Ted wasn't sure. Oh, well he was too comfortable at the moment to look gift horses of any description too sternly in the mouth.