"Or to mix cottonseed oil instead of olive oil with your salads?" thrust in Pryor.

"Precisely. Sometimes, when I eat at home I say: How can I stand Charley another twenty-four hours? Next day I eat at a restaurant, and say: I can stand Charley forever!"

They all laughed, and Lydia buried herself in the rug again.

"All the same," she went on meditatively, "I've never really got used to marriage. It's a well of never-ending surprises."

"What about my surprise?" asked Janet, for the fourth time.

The bell rang and Charlotte went to the door a few feet away.

"Here it comes!" announced Pryor, as a man entered.

"Janet!"

"Robert!"

Greetings all round cut their glances short.