"What's the matter, dear?" said Lorry. "Why aren't you in bed?"
"I can't possibly imagine except that I don't want to be there," came through the yawn.
"In a sort of way." She yawned again and stretched with a wide spread of arms. "I seem to be sleepy on the outside but it doesn't go down into my soul."
Lorry, drawing the comb through her long hair which fell in a shining sweep from her forehead to the chair seat, wanted this explained. But her sister vaguely shook her head and stared at the carpet, then, after a pause, murmured:
"Oh, just something--any old thing would be a change."
"Do you mean that you're dull?" she asked. The worried gravity of her face did not fit the subject.
"That must be it." Chrystie raised her eyes and looked at the cornice, her red lips parted, her glance becoming animated. "Yes, of course, that's it--I'm dull. Why didn't I see it myself? You've put it before me in letters of fire--I'm dreadfully dull."
"Have some good times, lots of them. There aren't enough of them this way. We can't go to the theater too often or we'd get used to it, and I can't get the Barlows to come up here every week, they have such crowds of engagements."
She sighed at the memory of the Barlows' superior advantages and the sigh sounded like a groan of reproach in Lorry's ears. Innocently, unconsciously, unaccusingly, Chrystie was rubbing in the failure of her stewardship. She combed at the ends of her hair, her eyes blind to its burnished brightness.
"Would you like to have a party here?" she said in a solemn voice.
Chrystie's glance was diverted from the cornice, wide open and astonished.
"Yes, it's big enough. There's plenty of room and we can afford it."
"But, Lorry"--the proposition was so startling that she could hardly believe it--"a _real_ party?"
"Any kind of a party you want. We might have several. We could begin with a dinner; Fong can cook anything."
Chrystie, the idea accepted and held in dazzled contemplation, suddenly saw a flaw.
"We know some and we could find some more."
"You talk as if you could find them scattered about on the ground the way they found nuggets in '49. Let's count our nuggets." She held up the spread fingers of a large white hand, bending one down with each name. "There's Charlie Crowder if he can get off, and his friend Robinson in the express company, and Roy Barlow, whom I know so well I could recite him in my sleep, and Mrs. Kirkham's grandnephew who looks like a child--and--and--good gracious, Lorry, is that _all_ our nuggets?"