“You’re rather good-looking yourself, Lily,” said Honora.

“I’m ten years older than you, my dear, and I have to be so careful.  Sid says I’m killing myself, but I’ve found a little massage woman who is wonderful.  How do you like this dress?”

“All your things are exquisite.”

“Do you think so?” cried Mrs. Dallam, delightedly.

Honora, indeed, had not perjured herself.  Only the hypercritical, when Mrs. Dallam was dressed, had the impression of a performed miracle.  She was the most finished of finished products.  Her complexion was high and (be it added) natural, her hair wonderfully ‘onduled’, and she had withal the sweetest and kindest of smiles and the most engaging laughter in the world.  It was impossible not to love her.

“Howard,” she cried, when a little later they were seated at the table, “how mean of you to have kept Honora in a dead and alive place like Rivington all these years!  I think she’s an angel to have stood it.  Men are beyond me.  Do you know what an attractive wife you’ve got?  I’ve just been telling her that there wasn’t a woman at my tea who compared with her, and the men were crazy about her.”

“That’s the reason I live down there,” proclaimed Howard, as he finished his first glass of champagne.

“Honora,” demanded Mrs. Dallam, ignoring his bravado, “why don’t you take a house at Quicksands?  You’d love it, and you’d look simply divine in a bathing suit.  Why don’t you come down?”

“Ask Howard,” replied Honora, demurely.

“Well, Lily, I’ll own up I have been considering it a little,” that gentleman admitted with gravity.  “But I haven’t decided anything.  There are certain drawbacks—­”

“Drawbacks!” exclaimed Mrs. Dallam.  “Drawbacks at Quicksands!  I’d like to know what they are.  Don’t be silly, Howard.  You get more for your money there than any place I know.”  Suddenly the light of an inspiration came into her eyes, and she turned to her husband.  “Sid, the Alfred Fern house is for rent, isn’t it?”

“I think it must be, Lily,” replied Mr. Dallam.

“Sometimes I believe I’m losing my mind,” declared Mrs. Dallam.  “What an imbecile I was not to think of it!  It’s a dear, Honora, not five minutes from the Club, with the sweetest furniture, and they just finished it last fall.  It would be positively wicked not to take it, Howard.  They couldn’t have failed more opportunely.  I’m sorry for Alfred, but I always thought Louise Fern a little snob.  Sid, you must see Alfred down town the first thing in the morning and ask him what’s the least he’ll rent it for.  Tell him I wish to know.”

“But—­my dear Lily—­began Mr. Dallam apologetically.

“There!” complained his wife, “you’re always raising objections to my most charming and sensible plans.  You act as though you wanted Honora and Howard to stay in Rivington.”

“My dear Lily!” he protested again.  And words failing him, he sought by a gesture to disclaim such a sinister motive for inaction.