t aware that I had a private
life."

"Anita, leave us alone with Mr. Blacklock," commanded her mother.

The girl hesitated, bent her head, and with a cowed look went slowly toward
the door. There she paused, and, with what seemed a great effort, lifted
her head and gazed at me. How I ever came rightly to interpret her look
I don't know, but I said: "Miss Ellersly, I've the right to insist that
you stay." I saw she was going to obey me, and before Mrs. Ellersly could
repeat her order I said: "Now, madam, if any one accuses me of having done
anything that would cause you to exclude a man from your house, I am ready
for the liar and his lie."

As I spoke I was searching the weak, bad old face of her husband for an
explanation. Their pretense of outraged morality I rejected at once--it was
absurd. Neither up town nor down, nor anywhere else, had I done anything
that any one could regard as a breach of the code of a man of the world.
Then, reasoned I, they must have found some one else to help them out of
their financial troubles--some one who, perhaps, has made this insult to me
the price, or part of the price, of his generosity. Who? Who hates me? In
instant answer, up before my mind flashed a picture of Tom Langdon and Sam
Ellersly arm in arm entering Lewis' office. Tom Langdon wishes to marry
her; and her parents wish it, too; he is the man she was confessing to me
about--these were my swift conclusions.

"We do not care to discuss the matter, sir," Mrs. Ellersly was replying,
her tone indicating that it was not fit to discuss. And this was the woman
I had hardly been able to treat civilly, so nauseating were her fawnings
and flatterings!

"So!" I said, ignoring her and opening my batteries full upon the old man.
"You are taking orders from Mowbray Langdon now. Why?"

As I spoke, I was conscious that there had been some change in Anita. I
looked at her. With startled eyes and lips apart, she was advancing toward
me.

"Anita, leave the room!" cried Mrs. Ellersly harshly, panic under the
command in her tones.

I felt rather than saw my advantage, and pressed it.

"You see what they are doing, Miss Ellersly," said I.

She passed her hands over her eyes, let her face appear again. In it there
was an energy of repulsion that ought to have seemed exaggerated to me
then, knowing really nothing of the true situation. "I understand now!"
said she. "Oh--it is--loathsome!" And her eyes blazed upon her mother.

"Loathso