tonians abroad. Her mother's name was not in tonight; but Marjorie knew that often it was and her own had been with it; and, glancing across the room to her father, she imagined him here alone, on some previous hot, quiet evening like this, reading, "Mrs. Charles Hale and her daughter are now in London, stopping at Claridge's where they entertained"
He was seated in range of the fan, smoking a cigarette and reading; or at least holding a newspaper before him.
"Gregg's coming up to-night, father," she said.
"Hmhm; all right," he looked around the paper at her. "That's good, if you want to see him."
"I do," she replied, and returned to the Index while he watched her.
Martin announced dinner and her father formally stood back for her to precede him into the dining room.
No more than three usually made the family table here in this large, quiet room, yet two seemed extraordinarily lonely at the table this evening. It was supper, really, not dinner; mostly cold things and iced coffee in tall, tinkling glasses. Marjorie drank her coffee but cared little about eating; she was restless, sitting there across the table from her father, but she particularly tried to control herself; for what kept her on edge was expectancy and impatience for an hour to come; for eight o'clock; and there was a dullness about her father to-night which was a denial of, almost the antithesis of, her own feeling.
She thought at first, "It's because I feel this way so much that he seems different." Then she knew that the change in him was not wholly, or even mostly, in her feeling. Always, even when he was weak following his wound from Russell's bullet, he had kept himself "on
