“If you'll only be reasonable a moment, Lily,—” said Honora.
“Reasonable! I saw you with my own eyes. Five minutes after you left me they all started for your house, and Lula Chandos said it was the quickest cure of a headache she had ever seen.”
“Lily,” Honora began again, with exemplary patience, “when people invite themselves to one's house, it's a little difficult to refuse them hospitality, isn't it?”
“Invite themselves?”
“Yes,” replied Honora. “If I weren't—fond of you, too, I shouldn't make this explanation. I was tired. I never felt less like entertaining strangers. They wanted to play bridge, there wasn't a quiet spot in the Club where they could go. They knew I was on my way home, and they suggested my house. That is how it happened.”
Mrs. Dallam was silent a moment.
“May I have one of Howard's cigarettes?” she asked, and added, after this modest wish had been supplied, “that's just like them. They're willing to make use of anybody.”
“I meant,” said Honora, “to have gone to your house this morning and to have explained how it happened.”
Another brief silence, broken by Lily Dallam.
“Did you notice the skirt of that suit Abby Kame had on?”, she asked. “I'm sure she paid a fabulous price for it in Paris, and it's exactly like one I ordered on Tuesday.”