the McVeys'. Most grateful she was for this mental distraction; to-night
she would have played three-hand bridge with papa and Mattie Allen with
enthusiasm.

Evey's dinner, of course, was far ahead of three-hand. The McVeys were
very rich, far richer than the Heths (theirs had been the marriage of
McVey's Drygoods and Notions, Wholesale Only, and Herkimer's Fresh
Provisions), and were considered "not quite" by some people, though Evey
certainly went everywhere and was very refined. Accordingly, the
evening's viands were of the best and the table talk at least good
enough for all practical purposes. Carlisle, who was almost feverishly
animated, lingered till the last possible moment: Evey actually asked
her to spend the night, and she actually came very near doing it.
Escorted home in a maritime hackney-coach by young Mr. Robert Tellford
(whose heart had been lacerated by rumors that persistently reached
him), Canning's betrothed permitted Robert to linger in the library,
positively detained him in the library, till eleven-thirty o'clock:
courtesies which would have run like wine to the young Tellford head but
for the lady's erratic and increasing distraitness....

The bibulous metaphor is here reversible. It possessed mutuality, so to
say. Cally herself would drown trouble to-night with intoxicating
draughts of human society. But there came a time when this resource was
denied her; when the human bars closed, as it were; in short, when all
the society in reach must sorrowfully put on his tall hat and go. And
then there came the nocturnal stillness of the house, and then the
solitariness of the bedchamber, and after that the dark.

Now the question that had rumbled all evening cloud-like in the
background of her consciousness, swam and took shape in the midnight