These contradictions caused him dismay, but Pylos suppressed his misgivings, with the help of Sadie Graine—who urged upon him matters of more immediate importance, such as jurisdictional disputes with fellow aid-agencies over specific rights to assist the needy. Any important deviation from established Organization practices would have necessitated a character very different from his. Faintly he trusted to the larger hope—that something less than ill would be the final goal of good. Sometimes he consoled himself with the simple fact that he, one of DALTO’s own officers, was aware of such inconsistencies. This seemed to help somewhat.

On the fifth anniversary of Pylos’s arrival at the Organization, a new leaf, turned by an unexpected hand, was opened in the story of Miss Sadie Graine.

That evening, for the first time, Sadie Graine came to dinner at the Pylos apartment. Mrs. Pylos had often spoken with Miss Graine on the telephone, and had glimpsed her occasionally in her husband’s office. Once in a while she had said to Pylos, “Shouldn’t we ask your secretary to dinner?” Pylos, from some instinct which he could not then explain but which was later vindicated, had repeatedly turned the suggestion aside. At last the anniversary celebration presented itself, and Mrs. Pylos, saying “Achilles, don’t be ridiculous,” had telephoned Miss Graine and invited her to dinner.

The evening seemed to go well enough. There were several other guests, and along the table Pylos saw his wife talking in her usual charming way with Miss Sadie Graine. He even heard her say, “Do call me Ismene.” It was unnecessary, even indecent, to contrast his wife, with her elegant golden head and great gray eyes, with Sadie Graine, with her tight little lips and tight little dark-blue dress; but Pylos was touched to observe that Sadie Graine had a new permanent wave for the occasion.

When the guests had gone—and, being official guests, they left early—Mrs. Pylos put her feet up on the sofa while her husband went around opening windows and replacing a chair or two. They remarked how So-and-So had put on weight, how his wife had been wearing a wig; how someone else had been allergic to the mousse. And at last the conversation reached Miss Sadie Graine.

“Really darling,” said Mrs. Pylos, taking off her bracelet and laying it on the coffee table beside her. “What an άπολειφάδι.”

Pylos was startled. His wife was a kind woman—in fact, as beautiful women go, a very kind woman. It was not her habit to take strong dislikes or to use strong language. He opened a window he had just closed. “How is that, my dear?”

“I should have thought,” his wife went on, “that you might just as well have kept the first one.”

Pylos now came and sat down. “Ismene, I don’t understand you at all. What first one?”