them Paula had never supervised the flower arrangement, Dick meditated. Oh Joy, himself a master of flowers, usually attended to that, or had his house-staff ably drilled to do it.

Among the telegrams Bonbright handed him, was one from Graham, which Dick read twice, although it was simple and unmomentous, being merely a postponement of his return.

Contrary to custom, Dick did not wait for the second lunch-gong. At the sound of the first he started, for he felt the desire for one of Oh Joy’s cocktails — the need of a prod of courage, after the lilacs, to meet Paula. But she was ahead of him. He found her — who rarely drank, and never alone — just placing an empty cocktail glass back on the tray.

So she, too, had needed courage for