“Suppose I don’t want any?” She did not give this out as a challenge, but he frowned a trifle impatiently.

“I can’t believe it possible,” he said.  “Have you lost all touch with the world?”

She came slowly forward into the warm circle of light.

“I don’t seem to care for people and things as I used to.  Look at me.  I’m not the same Myra.”

She stared at him with a deep, searching expression, and what she saw drew her up with a sudden movement of decision.  Her voice, when next she spoke, was lighter, more animated.

“You’re right, dear.  We’re growing poky.  I tell you what we’ll do,” she continued in a playful manner.  Her lips smiled, and her eyes watched as she knelt beside him, her head tilted, her fingers straying over the rough surface of his coat.  He never dressed for dinner in these days.  “We’ll give a party, shall we?” she said.  “And then everyone will know that we’re still—­alive.”

If she had wanted to test his state of mind, she could not have found a better way.  Instantly he was all eagerness.  Nothing would do but that they should plan the party at once, set the date, make out a list of friends to be invited.

She was ready with pad and pencil and her old address-book, which had lain for many days untouched in her desk.

“Shall we have Frances Maury?” she suggested.  “She’ll remind you of me as I was before we married.”

“What a gorgeous little devil you were!” he murmured reminiscently.

She wished he had not said that.  Yet how absurd it was to be jealous of oneself!

Well, they would entertain again, since it pleased him.  But she had lost her social instinct.  This party seemed a great enterprise.  She had to pretend to an enthusiasm which she did not really feel.  “Am I growing old?” she wondered more than once.  She had to confess to a panic of shyness when she thought of herself as hostess.  That was all she would be this time.  Frances Maury held the role of prima donna.

There were no regrets to her invitations.  They came, these old friends and acquaintances, with familiar voices and gestures.  They seemed genuinely glad to see her, but they did not spare her.  She had grown a little stouter, had she not?  Ah, well happy people risked that.  And they did not need to be told how happy she was.  In quite an old-fashioned way, too.  Myra domesticated—­how quaint that was!  Did she sing any more?  No?  What a pity!

Her rooms had lain quiet too long.  So much noise deafened her.  She was suddenly aware that she had grown stouter.  Her new gown, made for the occasion, should have been more cleverly designed.  Martigues as much as told her so.  She had, also, lost the power of attraction.  She could not hold people’s attention as she used to.  She was sensitively aware of how readily one and the other drifted away after a few words.  Had she not been hostess, she would often have found herself alone.