He was to take me out, and he came across the room to where I sat collapsed in a chair, and bent over me.

“Do you know,” he said, looking down at me with his clear, disconcerting gaze, “do you know that I have just grasped the situation?  There was such a noise that I did not hear your name, and I am only realizing now that you are my hostess!  I don’t know why I got the impression that this was a bachelor establishment, but I did.  Odd, wasn’t it?”

I positively couldn’t look away from him.  My features seemed frozen, and my eyes were glued to his.  As for telling him the truth—­well, my tongue refused to move.  I intended to tell him during dinner if I had an opportunity; I honestly did.  But the more I looked at him and saw how candid his eyes were, and how stern his mouth might be, the more I shivered at the plunge.  And, of course, as everybody knows now, I didn’t tell him at all.  And every moment I expected that awful old woman to ask me what I paid my cook, and when I had changed the color of my hair—­Bella’s being black.

Dinner was a half hour late when we finally went out, Jimmy leading off with Aunt Selina, and I, as hostess, trailing behind the procession with Mr. Harbison.  Dallas took in the two Mercer girls, for we were one man short, and Max took Anne.  Leila Mercer was so excited that she wriggled, and as for me, the candles and the orchids—­everything—­danced around in a circle, and I just seemed to catch the back of my chair as it flew past.  Jim had ordered away the wines and brought out some weak and cheap Chianti.  Dallas looked gloomy at the change, but Jim explained in an undertone that Aunt Selina didn’t approve of expensive vintages.  Naturally, the meal was glum enough.

Aunt Selina had had her dinner on the train, so she spent her time in asking me questions the length of the table, and in getting acquainted with me.  She had brought a bottle of some sort of medicine downstairs with her, and she took a claret-glassful, while she talked.  The stuff was called Pomona; shall I ever forget it?

It was Mr. Harbison who first noticed Takahiro.  Jimmy’s Jap had been the only thing in the menage that Bella declared she had hated to leave.  But he was doing the strangest things:  his little black eyes shifted nervously, and he looked queer.

“What’s wrong with him?” Mr. Harbison asked me finally, when he saw that I noticed.  “Is he ill?”

Then Aunt Selina’s voice from the other end of the table: 

“Bella,” she called, in a high shrill tone, “do you let James eat cucumbers?”

“I think he must be,” I said hurriedly aside to Mr. Harbison.  “See how his hands shake!” But Selina would not be ignored.

“Cucumbers and strawberries,” she repeated impressively.  “I was saying, Bella, that cucumbers have always given James the most fearful indigestion.  And yet I see you serve them at your table.  Do you remember what I wrote you to give him when he has his dreadful spells?”