CHAPTER XXXI.
NOVICE WORK.
Mrs. Coles did not improve her position next day. 'What nights does Sacchi-süssi sing?' she asked, when Rollo had left the three ladies alone. Hazel answered that she had not noticed.
'They say she is wonderful, and beautiful, and everything. Do you suppose Dane will take us, if we ask him nicely?'
'I do not go.'
'To the opera? My dear! Not at all?'
'Not at all.'
'But why?'
Wych Hazel stood thinking. She was very shy of declaring herselfyet sometimes it must be done.
'A few years ago,' she said slowly, 'when the war was going on, two gentlemen came one night to see Mr. Falkirk. They told war stories; and I with my book of some study in my hand, sat still and listened. One story was this. A mutual friend of all the parties had laid the United States flag down in her drawing room as a floor- cloth, to be trodden under foot. Then the other gentleman spoke out and said his wife would not enter that house again while the war lasted! Mrs. Colesat the opera and the theatre my flag is under foot.'