they entered.  His forehead had not quite banished the scowl, nor her eyes the scorn.  He was of the type that never lost his temper, but caused others to lose theirs, immovable in his opinions, with a prowling walk, a studied antagonism in his manner, and an impudent look that fastened itself unerringly on the weakness in the person to whom he spoke.  Mrs. Jackson, who seemed fastened to her husband by an invisible leash, had a hunted, resisting quality back of a certain desperate dash, which she assumed rather than felt in her attitude toward life.  One looked at her curiously and wondered what such a nature would do in a crisis, with a lurking sense of a woman who carried with her her own impending tragedy.

As soon as the company had been completed and the incongruity of the selection had been perceived, a smile of malicious anticipation ran the rounds, which the hostess cut short by saying: 

“Well, now that every one is here, this is the order of the night:  You can quarrel all you want, you can whisper all the gossip you can think of about one another, but every one is to be amusing!  Also every one is to help with the dinner—­nothing formal and nothing serious.  We may all be bankrupt to-morrow, divorced or dead, but to-night we will be gay—­that is the invariable rule of the house!”

Immediately a nervous laughter broke out and the company chattering began to scatter through the rooms.

Mrs. Kildair, stopping in her bedroom, donned a Watteaulike cooking apron, and slipping her rings from her fingers fixed the three on her pincushion with a hatpin.

“Your rings are beautiful, dear, beautiful,” said the low voice of Maude Lille, who with Harris and Mrs. Cheever were in the room.

“There’s only one that is very valuable,” said Mrs. Kildair, touching with her thin fingers the ring that lay uppermost, two large diamonds, flanking a magnificent sapphire.

“It is beautiful—­very beautiful,” said the journalist, her eyes fastened to it with an uncontrollable fascination.  She put out her fingers and let them rest caressingly on the sapphire, withdrawing them quickly as though the contact had burned them.

“It must be very valuable,” she said, her breath catching a little.  Mrs. Cheever, moving forward, suddenly looked at the ring.

“It cost five thousand six years ago,” said Mrs. Kildair, glancing down at it.  “It has been my talisman ever since.  For the moment, however, I am cook; Maude Lille, you are scullery maid; Harris is the chef, and we are under his orders.  Mrs. Cheever, did you ever peel onions?”

“Good Heavens, no!” said Mrs. Cheever, recoiling.

“Well, there are no onions to peel,” said Mrs. Kildair, laughing.  “All you’ll have to do is to help set the table.  On to the kitchen!”

Under their hostess’s gay guidance the seven guests began to circulate busily through the rooms, laying the table, grouping the chairs, opening bottles, and preparing the material for the chafing dishes.  Mrs. Kildair in the kitchen ransacked the ice box, and with her own hands chopped the fines herbes, shredded the chicken and measured the cream.