She was at once saying to herself, “I’ve never in my life seen such a circus-clown get-up,” and wishing that her substantial Neil could wear clothes like that and still look romantic.

Belfreda smiled as though they were just girls together, and cooed, “Oh, Mis’ Kingsblood, this is Mr. Borus Bugdoll. He owns the Jumpin’ Jive Night Club—it’s a lovely place. He’s a friend of mine. He come to see how I was getting along.”

Borus spoke with only the smallest musky taste of Southern Negro accent. “I have heard of Mrs. Kingsblood, often. This is an honor. May I hope that it will be repeated?”

“He’s laughing his head off at me!” Vestal quaked, and with a mumbled something which did no especial credit to her intellectual superiority, she bolted from the kitchen—without the glass of water. She grinned at Neil and quavered, not displeased, “I’ve just been insulted, I think, and I think the gentleman got away with it.”

“Who’s this? Curtiss?”

“No, a person of color named Borus or Boreas Bugdoll, Mister Bugdoll, and don’t leave out the Mister, or else. Borus and Belfreda! I tell you, the darkies are comic! And what a lie that is! Don’t look now, but I imagine I’ve just been privileged to gaze upon the most attractive and horrid heel I ever saw.”

“What is all this? Some one in the kitchen?” Neil said mildly.

“Now for Heaven’s sake, don’t be your brother Robert!”

“But who is the brash boy-friend? I’m going out and take a look.”

With Vestal following and in a lively way wondering whether Neil or Borus would do the murdering, he marched into the kitchen. But Borus was gone, and so was Belfreda, and so was the red coupé that had been parked behind the house, and the dishes lay there in the sink, miserable and untouched.

* * * * *

Neil’s sister, the pleasant Kitty, three years older, had always been closest to him of the whole family. She was married to Charles Sayward, a very decent young lawyer who for a term had been city attorney. Kitty and Charles came in this evening, to further their lifework, which was contract bridge.

Serenely playing, forgetting the horrors of domestic insurrection, Vestal looked up, late in the evening, to see Belfreda crooking a finger from the half-darkness of the hall. Behind her was the sardonic Borus Bugdoll.

“You back? What is it?” said Vestal crossly.

“Oh, Mis’ Kingsblood, I’m sorry but I got to quit. Right away. We got sickness in the family.”

The grim warrior-woman snapped, “You mean quit now, for good, at this hour, with the dishes unwashed?”

Borus said smoothly, “You might dock her four bits for failing to do the dishes.”

Not Vestal alone but all the others felt uncomfortably that Borus was laughing at them.

“Oh, I’ll wash ‘em,” Belfreda said sulkily.

“No you won’t! I want you to get out right now, and get out quick. I’ll pay you at once.” Vestal stalked to her little cream-colored desk and slammed open her efficient small account-book. “With what I’ve advanced you this month deducted, I owe you $63.65, Belfreda. Oh. I haven’t got that much.”