“Who’s lecturing on art?” queried Arthur Chester, from the doorway.

His wife, Winifred, entering before him, cried out at sight of the pale gray gauze gown.

“O Ellen!  I thought I looked pretty well, till I caught sight of you.  Now I feel crude!”

“Absurd,” said Ellen, laughing.  “You are charming in that blue.”

“There they go again,” groaned Macauley to Burns.  “Winifred feels crude, when she looks at Ellen.  Why?  I don’t feel crude when I look at you or Art Chester.  Neither of you has so late a cut on your dress-coat as I, I flatter myself.  I feel anything but crude.  And I don’t want a rose in my hair, either.”

“You’re a self-satisfied prig,” retorted Burns.  “Hullo!  Somebody’s coming.  Tell me what to do, Martha.  Do I run to meet them and rush them up to Ellen, or do I display a studied indifference?  I never ‘received’ at a reception in my life.”

“Get in line there,” instructed Macauley.  “Martha and I’ll greet them first and pass them on to you.  Don’t look as if you were noting symptoms and don’t absent-mindedly feel their pulses.  It’s not done, outside of consulting rooms.”

“I’ll try to remember.”  R.P.  Burns, M.D. resignedly took his place, murmuring in Ellen’s ear, as the first comers appeared at the door, “Promise you’ll make this up to me, when it’s over.  I shall have to blow off steam, somehow.  Will you help?”

She nodded, laughing.  He chuckled, as an idea popped into his head; then drew his face into lines of propriety, and stood, a big, dignified figure—­for Red Pepper could be dignified when the necessity was upon him—­beside the other graceful figure at his side, suggesting an unfailing support of her grace by his strength to all who looked at them that night.  He had declared himself ignorant of all conventions, but neither jocose James Macauley nor fastidious Arthur Chester, observing him, could find any fault with their friend in this new role.  As the stream of their townspeople passed by, each with a carefully prepared word of greeting, Burns was ready with a quick-wittedly amiable rejoinder.  And whenever it became his duty to present to his wife those who did not know her, he made of the act a little ceremony which seemed to set her apart as his own in a way which roused no little envy of her, if he had but known it, in the breasts of certain of the feminine portion of the company.

“You’re doing nobly.  Keep it up an hour longer and you shall be let off,” said Macauley to Burns, at a moment when both were free.

“Oh, I’m having the time of my life,” Burns assured him grimly, mopping a warm brow and thrusting his chin forward with that peculiar masculine movement which suggests momentary relief from an encompassing collar.  “Why should anybody want to be released from such a soul-refreshing diversion as this?  I’ve lost all track of time or sense,—­I just go on grinning and assenting to everything anybody says to me.  I couldn’t discuss the simplest subject with any intelligence whatever—­I’ve none left.”