Neither husband nor wife spoke much of the fire, but a rather gay
conversation was carried on and there was much philosophical
laughter of the sort that such an occasion always breeds.

"I might know that you would save that statue, Jack," said Bert to
one of the young Underhills. "We've been trying to break that for
eleven years!"

"If that's the case," the youth said solemnly, and Nancy's old
happy laugh rang out as he flung the plaster Psyche in a smother
of white fragments against the chimney.

"I suppose it would be only decent for me to get started at
something," she said, after a while. "It seems senseless to sit
here and merely watch--"

"For pity's sake sit still if you can," old Mrs. Underbill said
affectionately. "The fire company's going, and people are all
leaving now, anyway. And we've got to go, too, but Joe will be
over again later--to bring you back with us. Just try to keep
calm, Nancy, and don't worry!"

Worry? Nancy knew that she had not been so free from actual worry
for a long, long time. She remembered a dinner engagement with a
pleasant reflection that it could not be kept. To-morrow, too,
with its engagement to play cards and dine and dance, was now
freed. And Monday--when she had promised to go to town and look
for hats with Dorothy, and Tuesday, when those women were coming
for lunch--it was all miraculously cancelled. A mere chance had
loosed the bonds that neither her own desperate resolution nor