The Lady of Big Shanty. F. Berkeley Smith

hat—"our fourth dinner party this week, and Alice never said a word to me about it." Again he glanced at the names of the men upon the ten diminutive envelopes, written in an angular feminine hand; most of them those of men he rarely saw save at his own dinners. Suddenly his eye caught the name upon the third envelope from the end of the orderly row.

      "Dr. Sperry again!" he exclaimed, half aloud. He opened it and his lips closed tight. The crested card bore the name of his wife. As he dropped it back in its place his ear caught the sound of a familiar figure descending the stairway—the figure of a woman of perhaps thirty-five, thoroughly conscious of her beauty, whose white arms flashed as she moved from beneath the flowing sleeves of a silk tea-gown that reached to her tiny satin slippers.

      She had gained the hall now, and noticing her husband came slowly toward him.

      "Where's Margaret?" Thayor asked, after a short pause during which neither had spoken.

      The shoulders beneath the rose tea-gown shrugged with a gesture of impatience.

      "In the library, I suppose," she returned. Then, with a woman's intuition, she noticed that the third envelope had been touched. Her lips tightened. "Get dressed, Sam, or you will be late, as usual."

      Thayor raised his head and looked at her.

      "You never told me, Alice, that you were giving a dinner to-night—I never knew, in fact, until I found these."

      "And having found them you pawed them over." There was a subtle, almost malicious defiance in her tone. "Go on—what else? Come—be quick! I must look at my table." One of her hands, glittering with the rings he had given her, was now on the portiere, screening the dining room from out which came faintly the clink of silver. She stopped, her slippered foot tapping the marble floor impatiently. "Well!" she demanded, her impatience increasing, "what is it?"

      "Nothing," he replied slowly—"nothing that you can understand," and he strode past her up the sweeping stairs.

      Margaret was in the biggest chair in the long library, sitting curled up between its generous arms when he entered. At the moment she was absorbed in following a hero through the pages of a small volume bound in red morocco. Thayor watched her for a moment, all his love for her in his eyes.

      "Oh, daddy!" she cried. Her arms were about his neck now, the brown eyes looking into his own. "Oh, daddy! Oh! I'm so glad you've come. I've had such a dandy ride to-day!" She paused, and taking his two hands into her own looked up at him saucily. "You know you promised me a new pony. I really must have one. Ethel says my Brandy is really out of fashion, and I've seen such a beauty with four ducky little white feet."

      "Where, Puss?" He stroked her soft hair as he spoke, his fingers lingering among the tresses.

      "Oh, at the new stable. Ethel and I have been looking him over; she says he's cheap at seven hundred. May I have him daddy? It looks so poverty-stricken to be dependent on one mount."

      Suddenly she stopped. "Why, daddy! What's the matter? You look half ill," she said faintly.

      Thayor caught his breath and straightened.

      "Nothing, Puss," he answered, regaining for the moment something of his jaunty manner. "Nothing, dearie. I must go and dress, or I shall be late for our guests."

      "But my pony, daddy?" pleaded Margaret.

      Thayor bent and kissed her fresh cheek.

      "There—I knew you would!" she cried, clapping her hands in sheer delight.

      Half an hour later, when the two walked down the sweeping stairs, her soft hand about his neck, the other firmly in his own, they found the mother, now radiant in white lace and jewels, standing before the white chimney piece, one slippered foot resting upon the low brass fender. Only when the muffled slam of a coupe door awoke her to consciousness did she turn and speak to them, and only then with one of those perfunctory remarks indulged in by some hostesses when their guests are within ear-shot.

      In the midst of the comedy, to which neither made reply, the heavy portieres were suddenly drawn aside and Blakeman's trained voice rang out:

      "Dr. Sperry!"

      A tall, wiry man with a dark complexion, alluring black eyes and black moustache curled up at the ends, entered hastily, tucking the third envelope in the pocket of his pique waistcoat.

      A peculiar expression flashed subtly from Alice's dark eyes as she smiled and put forth her hand. "I'm so glad you could come," she murmured. "I was afraid you would be sent for by somebody at the last moment."

      "And I am more than happy, I assure you, dear lady," he laughed back, as he bent and kissed the tips of her fingers.

      "And yet I feel so guilty—so very guilty, when there is so much sickness about town this wretched weather," she continued.

      Again he smiled—this time in his best professional manner, in the midst of which he shook hands with Margaret and Thayor. Then he added in a voice as if he had not slept for months—

      "Yes, there is a lot of grippe about."

      Thayor looked at him from under lowered lids.

      "I wonder you could have left these poor people," he said sententiously.

      Alice, scenting danger, stretched forth one white hand and touched the doctor's wrist.

      "You came because I couldn't do without you, didn't you, dear doctor?"

      Again the portiere opened.

      "Mr. and Mrs. Reginald Van Rock—Mr. Kennedy Jones—Miss Trevor," announced Blakeman successively.

      Mrs. Thayor's fourth dinner party that week had begun.

      * * * * *

      As the door closed at midnight upon the last guest, Margaret kissed her father and mother good-night and hurried to her room, leaving the two alone. The dinner had been an ordeal to her—never before had she seen her father so absorbed.

      "You were very brilliant to-night, were you not?" exclaimed Alice as soon as she and Thayor were alone.

      Thayor continued silent, gazing into the library fire, his hands clenched deep in his trousers pockets, his shoulders squared.

      "A beautiful dinner," she continued, her voice rising—"the best I have had this season, and yet you sat there like a log."

      The man turned sharply—so sharply that the woman at his side gave a start.

      "Sit down!" he commanded—"over there where I can see you. I have something to say."

      She looked at him in amazement. The determined ring in his voice made her half afraid. What had he to say?

      "What do you mean?" she retorted.

      "Just what I said. Sit down!"

      The fair shoulders shrugged. She was accustomed to these outbursts, but not to this ring in his voice.

      "Go on—what is it?"

      Thayor crossed the room, shut the door and turned the key in the lock. She watched him in silence as he switched off the electric lights along the bookcases, until naught illumined the still library but the soft glow of the lamp and the desultory flare from the hearth.

      Still he did not speak. Finally the storm broke.

      "What I have to say to you is this: I'm sick of this wholesale giving of dinners."

      Alice let go her breath. After all, it was not what was uppermost in her mind.

      "Ah! So that's it," she returned.

      "That's a part of it," he cried, "but not all."

      "And the other part?" she asked, her nervousness returning.

      "I'll come to that later," said her husband, with an accent on the last word. "It is necessary that I should begin at the beginning."

      "Go