“Never,” retorted Selma.

“What is that Gregory is saying?” interrupted Flossy, putting her arm inside Selma’s.  “I can see by his look that he has been plaguing you.”

“Yes, he has been trying to shatter my ideals, and now he is trying to induce me to make an odious bet with him.”

“Don’t, for you would be certain to lose.  Gregory is in great luck nowadays.”

“That is evident, for he has had the good fortune to make the acquaintance of Mrs. Littleton,” said Williams gallantly.

The two men were left alone with their cigars.  After these were lighted, as if he were carrying out his previous train of thought, Gregory remarked, oracularly, at the end of a puff:  “Louisville and Nashville is certain to sell higher.”

Littleton looked blank for a moment.  He knew so little of stocks that at first he did not understand what was meant.  Then he said, politely:  “Indeed!”

“It is good for a ten-point rise in my opinion,” Williams continued after another puff.  He was of a liberal nature, and was making a present of this tip to his guest in the same spirit of hospitality as he had proffered the dinner and the champagne.  He was willing to take for granted that Littleton, as a gentleman, would give him the order in case he decided to buy, which would add another customer to his list.  But his suggestion was chiefly disinterested.

“I’m afraid I know very little about such matters,” Littleton responded with a smile.  “I never owned but ten shares of stock in my life.”  Then, by way, perhaps, of showing that he was not indifferent to all the good things which the occasion afforded, he said, indicating a picture on the opposite wall:  “That is a fine piece of color.”

Williams, having discharged his obligations as a host, was willing to exchange the stock-market as a topic for his own capacity as a lightning appreciator and purchaser of objects of art.

“Yes,” he said, urbanely, “that is a good thing.  I saw it in the shop-window, asked the price and bought it.  I bought two other pictures at the same time.  ‘I’ll take that, and that, and that,’ I said, pointing with my cane.  The dealer looked astonished.  He was used, I suppose, to having people come in and look at a picture every day for a fortnight before deciding.  When I like a thing I know it.  The three cost me eighteen hundred dollars, and I paid for them within a week by a turn in the market.”

“You were very fortunate,” said Littleton, who wished to seem sympathetic.

Meanwhile the two wives had returned to the drawing-room arm in arm, and established themselves on one of those small sofas for two, constructed so that the sitters are face to face.  They had taken a strong fancy to each other, especially Flossy to Selma, and in the half hour which followed they made rapid progress toward intimacy.  Before they parted each had agreed to call the other by her Christian name, and Selma had confided the story of her divorce.  Flossy listened with absorbed interest and murmured at the close: