"Did I know? Why, Lita! I've heard of nothing else for weeks. It's the annual feast for the Marchesa."
"I was never told," said Lita calmly. "I'm afraid I'm engaged."
Jim lifted his head with a jerk. "You were told a fortnight ago."
"Oh, a fortnight! That's too long to remember anything. It's like Nona's telling me that I ought to admire my drawing-room because I admired it two years ago."
Her husband reddened to the roots of his tawny hair. "Don't you admire it?" he asked, with a sort of juvenile dismay.
"There; Lita'll be happy now—she's produced her effect!" Nona laughed a little nervously.
Lita joined in the laugh. "Isn't he like his mother?" she shrugged.
Jim was silent, and his sister guessed that he was afraid to insist on the dinner engagement lest he should increase his wife's determination to ignore it. The same motive kept Nona from saying anything more; and the lunch ended in a clatter of talk about other things. But what puzzled Nona was that her father's communication to Lita should have concerned the fact that she was dining at his house that night. It was unlike Dexter Manford to remember the fact himself (as Miss Bruss's frantic telephoning had testified), and still more unlike him to remind his wife's guests, even if he knew who they were to be—which he seldom did. Nona pondered. "They must have been going somewhere together—he told me he was engaged tonight—and Lita's in a temper because they can't. But then she's in a temper about everything today." Nona tried to make that cover all her perplexities. She wondered if it did as much for Jim.
IV
