She answered with her furtive look.
“I know. And I don’t think—I don’t want to come as much as I did.”
“In that case——” Anita ruffled up.
“Fog! Fog!” cried Miss Howe clapping her hands. And then—“All the same, Nita, people are dropping off. The Whitneys haven’t been for weeks. When did Roy Huth come last? And the Golding crowd? I marvel that he turns up still.” She nodded towards Kent Rehan. “Oh, you know, we’re like a row of beads when the string’s been pulled out. We lie in a line for a time, but a touch will send us rolling in all directions.”
“Yes,” said the Baxter girl vehemently, “the heart’s out of it somehow. I’m not ungrateful. It’s just because I used to love coming so.”
Miss Howe looked down at Anita, not unkindly.
“Give it up, Nita! The Nights have served their turn. It sounds ungracious, but things have to end sometime or other. Hasn’t the time come? Hasn’t it come tonight?”
“But you’ve been coming all this year just the same,” said Anita stubbornly.
Miss Howe shrugged her shoulders. It was the Baxter girl who answered—
“Ah, but there was always just a chance of seeing Madala.”