“I had something else more important to do.  Grace knew I wasn’t coming when she asked me.  Society and Scarborough Square can’t be served at the same time.”  I smiled.  “During the days of apprenticeship only a half-hour is allowed for lunch.  Did you have a good time?”

“Of course I didn’t.  Who does with an anxious hostess?  One of the guests was an out-of-town person who used to know you well.  She wanted to hear all about you and everybody told her something different.  All that’s necessary is to mention your name and—­”

“The play’s begun.  To be an inexhaustible subject of chatter is to serve a purpose in life.  I’d prefer a nobler one, still—­ Who was my inquiring friend?”

“I’ve forgotten her name.  She was the most miserable-looking woman I ever saw.  On any one else her clothes would have been stunning.  Don’t think she and her husband hit it off very well.  There’s another lady he finds more entertaining than she is, and she hasn’t the nerve to tell him to quit it or go to Ballyhack.  Women make me tired!”

“They tire men, also.  A woman who accepts insult is hardly apt to be interesting.  Tell me about the luncheon.  Who was at it?”

“Same old bunch.  Grace left out nothing that could be brought in.  Most of the entertaining nowadays is a game of show-down, regular exhibitions of lace and silver and food and flowers and china and glass, and gorgeous gowns and stupid people.  I’m getting sick of them.”

“Why don’t you start a new kind?  You might have your butler hand a note to each of your guests on arriving, stating that all the things other people had for their tables you had for yours, but only what was necessary would be used.  Then you might have a good time.  It’s difficult to talk down to an excess of anything.”

“Wish I had the nerve to do it!” Kitty again changed her position; fixed more comfortably the pink-lined, embroidered pillows at her back, and looked at me uncertainly.  I waited.  Presently she leaned toward me.

“People are talking about you, Danny.  You won’t mind if I tell you?” Her blue eyes, greatly troubled, looked into mine, then away, and her hand slipped into my hand and held it tightly.  “Sometimes I hate people!  They are so mean, so nasty!”

“What are they saying?” I straightened the slender fingers curled about mine and stroked them.  “Only dead people aren’t talked about.  What is being said about me?”

“Horrid things—­not to me, of course.  They’d better not be!  But—­Mrs. Herbert came to see me yesterday afternoon.  She wasn’t at the luncheon and Grace got the first rap, but most of her hatefulness she took out on you.  She’s worse than a germ disease.  I always feel I ought to be disinfected after I see her.  If she were a leper she wouldn’t be allowed at large, and she’s much more deadly.  People like that ought to be locked up.”

“What did she tell you about me?” I smiled in Kitty’s flushed face, smiled also at the remembrance of Alice Herbert’s would-be cut some time ago, but I did not mention it.  “You oughtn’t to be so hard on her.  She’s crazy.”