Miss Pride at last released Mr. Whitney, who for the past half hour had been fussing on the very edge of the sofa, so anxious to return to the hospital bedside of his son to congratulate him on the good tidings he had received from Dr. McAllister. He had, being at the end of his patience and ready to scream with vexation, finally risen and squeaked like a schoolboy, “Lucy, I have to go!” Clutching his hat, which he had refused to give up when he came in, in the hope that he would be able to make a flying visit, he dashed from the room. Miss Pride left her post and came over to speak to the Countess.

“I hoped you would come in,” she said. “I rang you up earlier to make sure, but you weren’t home. I have a bit of news for you. You know what I mean. I had a telephone call from New York this morning.”

“Indeed!” cried the Countess and a flush of excitement illuminated her already well-lighted face. “Well, darling, can’t we step over there?”

They moved off arm in arm toward the tulip-wood commode and stood there talking gravely for some time. I thought it singular that these two should have a secret. Hopestill, perhaps sensing my curiosity, enlightened me. Both of them, being shrewd business women, were in the habit of exchanging tips on the stock market, but did so out of earshot of everyone else, partly because they knew their passion for finance (which they had managed to dissociate from “cash” and “money” and approached as a pure science) would be considered in bad taste, and partly because they were frankly unwilling to share with anyone else the precious information that their Wall Street brokers periodically hissed over the wires. They were subscribers to the daily forecast of the Dow-Jones averages and to Barrons, and when they met, if it were at a dinner party, in Stearn’s department store, or in Mrs. Gardner’s palace, they instantly locked arms and conversed in whispers, comparing notes on the vagaries of the Greyhound Bus Company, like doctors consulting on a difficult case.

Mrs. Choate, stranded with the three young survivors of the tea-party, glanced from one to another of us and chose me to receive her first remark. “I know you must be a capable young woman. Just fancy learning stenography! Why, it’s ever so much cleverer than my little avocation!”

She studied me brightly. Hopestill and Philip, refusing to come to my aid, began a private conversation and I was obliged to inquire what Mrs. Choate’s avocation was.