“Why not?” she returned, with an arching of the eyebrows.

“Why,” he said, “perhaps I had better make a clean breast of it.”

“Perhaps you had,” she said, and they both laughed, though he laughed with a knot between his eyes.

“The fact is, you know, this isn’t my treat, exactly.  It’s Mr. Stoller’s.”  At the surprise in her face he hurried on.  “He’s got back his first letter in the paper, and he’s so much pleased with the way he reads in print, that he wants to celebrate.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. March, non-committally.

Burnamy laughed again.  “But he’s bashful, and he isn’t sure that you would all take it in the right way.  He wants you as friends of mine; and he hasn’t quite the courage to ask you himself.”

This seemed to Mrs. March so far from bad that she said:  “That’s very nice of him.  Then he’s satisfied with—­with your help?  I’m glad of that.”

“Thank you.  He’s met the Triscoes, and he thought it would be pleasant to you if they went, too.”

“Oh, certainly.”

“He thought,” Burnamy went on, with the air of feeling his way, “that we might all go to the opera, and then—­then go for a little supper afterwards at Schwarzkopf’s.”

He named the only place in Carlsbad where you can sup so late as ten o’clock; as the opera begins at six, and is over at half past eight, none but the wildest roisterers frequent the place.

“Oh!” said Mrs. March.  “I don’t know how a late supper would agree with my husband’s cure.  I should have to ask him.”

“We could make it very hygienic,” Burnamy explained.

In repeating his invitation she blamed Burnamy’s uncandor so much that March took his part, as perhaps she intended, and said, “Oh, nonsense,” and that he should like to go in for the whole thing; and General Triscoe accepted as promptly for himself and his daughter.  That made six people, Burnamy counted up, and he feigned a decent regret that there was not room for Mrs. Adding and her son; he would have liked to ask them.

Mrs. March did not enjoy it so much as coming with her husband alone when they took two florin seats in the orchestra for the comedy.  The comedy always began half an hour earlier than the opera, and they had a five-o’clock supper at the Theatre-Cafe before they went, and they got to sleep by nine o’clock; now they would be up till half past ten at least, and that orgy at Schwarzkopf’s might not be at all good for him.  But still she liked being there; and Miss Triscoe made her take the best seat; Burnamy and Stoller made the older men take the other seats beside the ladies, while they sat behind, or stood up, when they, wished to see, as people do in the back of a box.  Stoller was not much at ease in evening dress, but he bore himself with a dignity which was not perhaps so gloomy as it looked; Mrs. March thought him handsome in his way, and required Miss Triscoe to admire him.  As for Burnamy’s