house party—­oh, it was absurd!  She looked them over.  Dull-eyed, blase, frayed by the social whirl, worn out, pulseless, all of them.  They talked automobile, bridge, women, and self in particular; in the seclusion of a tete-a-tete they talked love with an ardor that lost most of its danger because it was from force of habit.  One of the men was even now admitting in her ear that he had not spent an evening alone with his wife in four years.

“There’s always something doing,” he said.  “A week or two ago, by Jove, you wouldn’t believe it, but we had an evening turn up without a thing on hand.  Strangest thing I ever knew.  Neither of us had a thing on.  We said we’d stay at home and go to bed early, just to see how it felt.  Well, what do you think?  We sat up and read till half past ten o’clock and then both of us thought of it at the same time.  We dressed and went down to Hector’s and waited for the theatres to let out.  Three o’clock when we got home.  You can’t imagine what a queer experience it is, being all alone with one’s wife.”

“Don’t you love your wife, Mr. Odwell?”

“Certainly! but there’s always a crowd.”  Both of them glanced over at pretty Mrs. Odwell.  She was looking down at her plate demurely while Reggie Van Voort talked straight into her pink ear, his eyes gleaming with the zest of invasion.  “I say, Miss Drake, you won’t mind talking to me a while after dinner, will you?” went on Odwell, something like relief in his voice.

After dinner she was obliged to set him straight in a little matter.  They were sitting on the terrace and he had thrown away his half-smoked cigarette, an act in itself significant.  She had been listening patiently, from sheer habit and indifference, to what he was saying, but at last she revolted.

“Don’t!  You shall not say such things to me.  I am not your kind, I fancy, Mr. Odwell,” she said.  “I don’t know why you should tell me of your chorus-girl friends—­of your suppers and all that.  I don’t care to hear of them and I don’t intend that you shall use me as a subject of illustration.  I am going upstairs.”

“Oh, come now, that’s rather rough, just as we were getting on so well.  All the fellows do the same—­”

“I know.  You need not tell me.  And you all have wives at home, too,” with intense scorn.

“Now, that’s where you wrong us.  They’re not at home, you know.  That’s just it.”

“Never mind, Mr. Odwell; I’m going in.”  She left him and entered the house.  For a minute or two he looked after her in wonder, and then, softly whistling, made his way over to where De Peyton, through some oversight, was talking to his own wife.  De Peyton unceremoniously announced that he was going upstairs to write a letter.

Penelope, flushed with disgust and humiliation, drew near a crowd of men and women in the long living-room.  Her brother was haranguing the assemblage, standing forth among them like an unconquered bantam.  In spite of herself, she felt a wave of shame and pity creep over her as she looked at him.