"You needn't lay it on me, miss! There's folks callin' to see Mrs. Tilney at eight, I tell you, and I gotta git th' room cleared!"
"That's all right too!" retorted Miss Hultz. "Mrs. T. can ask in the whole street if she's a mind, only I'm not going to give up eating! Pass th' bread, Mr. Backus!"
Mr. Backus, the gentleman at Miss Hultz' left, was a plump, pasty young man who worked in Wall Street, and as he passed the bread he inquired:
"What's th' madam giving, a soirée?"
"Sworry" was what he called it, but Miss Hultz seemed to comprehend. Shrugging her shoulders, she raised at the same time her fine, expressive eyebrows.
"Search me," she murmured indolently.
The colloquy, it appeared, had not been lost on the others; neither had they missed the vague evidences that something unusual was happening in Mrs. Tilney's house.
Mr. Jessup spoke suddenly.
"Did you say someone was coming?" he abruptly asked. Then he added: "Tonight?"
His tone was queer. His air, too, was equally curious; and Mrs. Jessup glanced up at him astonished.