She went toward the telephone.
"Oh, but I can't keep you at home. It is too outrageous!" he said.
"Give me time to telephone!" she answered, looking round at him over her shoulder.
"You are much too kind!" he said. "I—I looked in to settle about your coming to that rehearsal."
She got on to the number in Fifth Avenue and spoke through the telephone softly.
"There! That's done! And now help me to order a dinner for—" she glanced at him shrewdly—"a tired genius."
Claude smiled. They consulted together, amicably arranging the menu.
The dinner was brought quickly, and they sat down, one on each side of a round table decorated with lilies of the valley.
"I'm playing traitress to-night," Mrs. Shiffney said in her deep voice. "I was to have been at a dinner arranged for the Senniers by Mrs. Algernon Batsford."
"I am so ashamed."