“How many kinds of a chump can you be in one day?” asked her wrathful brother.

“Pons longa, vita brevis,” observed Hamil, intensely amused.  “Don’t sit on her, Gray.”

“O dear!  O dear!” said Cecile calmly, “I’d rather be stepped on again than sat on like that!”

“You’re a sweet little thing anyway,” said Hamil, “even if you do fall down in Bridge as well as otherwise—­”

“Shiela!  You told Garret!”

“Cunning child,” said Hamil; “make her dance the baby-dance, Shiela!” And he and her sister and brother seized her unwilling hands and compelled her to turn round and round, while they chanted in unison: 

“Cissy’s Bridge is falling down,
Falling down,
Falling down,
Cissy’s gown is falling down,
My
Fair
Lady!”

“Garry, stop it!...  It’s only an excuse to hold Shiela’s hand—­”

But Shiela recited very gravely: 

“Father’s in Manhattan town,
Hunting up our money;
Philip’s in the music-room,
Calling Cis his honey;
Cissy’s sprinting through the hall,
Trying to be funny—­”

“I won’t dance!” cried Cecile.  But they sang insultingly: 

    “Rock-a-by Cissy! 
      Philip will slop! 
    Cissy is angry,
      For Philip won’t stop.”

    “If dresses are stepped upon,
    Something will fall,
    Down will come petticoat, Cissy, and all!”

“O Garry, how can you!”

“Because you’ve been too gay lately; you’re marked for discipline, young lady!”

“Who told you?  Shiela?—­and it was my newest, dearest, duck of a gown!...  The situation was perfectly horrid, too.  What elephants men are!”

“You know, I’d accept him if I were you—­just to teach him the value of gowns,” suggested Hamil.

But Shiela said seriously:  “Phil Gatewood is a nice boy.  We all knew that he was going to ask you.  You acted like a ninny, Cis.”

“With my gown half off!—­what would you have done?” demanded the girl hotly.

“Destroyed him,” admitted Shiela, “in one way or another, dear.  And now I am going to bed—­if everybody has had enough of Cissy’s Bridge—­”

“Me for the hay,” observed Gray emphatically.

So they all went up the stairway together, lingering a few moments on the landing to say good night.

Cecile retired first, bewailing the humiliation of not having a maid of her own and requesting Shiela to send hers as she was too sleepy to undress.

Gray caught sight of a moth fluttering around the electric lights and made considerable noise securing the specimen.  After which he also retired, cyanide jar containing the victim tucked under his arm.

CHAPTER XVIII

PERIL

Shelia, standing by the lamplit table and resting one slim hand on the edge of it, waited for Hamil to give the signal for separation.