e's always played the game before. With Del, I don't think she quite
did. She quit: that's the plain fact of it. Just tired of him. No other
cause that I can find. Won't get a divorce. Doesn't want it. So there's
no one else in the case. It's queer. It's mighty queer. And I can't help
thinking that the old jar to her brain--"

"Have you suggested that to her?" asked Banneker as the other broke off
to ruminate mournfully.

"Yes. She only laughed. Then she said that poor old Del wasn't at fault
except for marrying her in the face of a warning. I don't know what she
meant by it; hanged if I do. But, you see, it's quite true: there'll be
no divorce or separation.... You're sure she was quite normal when you
last saw her at Miss Van Arsdale's?"

"Absolutely. If you want confirmation, why not write Miss Van Arsdale
yourself?"

"No; I hardly think I'll do that.... Now as to that gray you rode, I've
got a chance to trade him." And the talk became all of horse, which is
exclusive and rejective of other interests, even of women.

Going back in the train, Banneker reviewed the crowding events of the
day. At the bottom of his thoughts lay a residue, acid and stinging, the
shame of the errand which had taken him to The Retreat, and which the
memory of what was no less than a personal triumph could not submerge.
That he, Errol Banneker, whose dealings with all men had been on the
straight and level status of self-respect, should have taken upon him
the ignoble task of prying into intimate affairs, of meekly soliciting
the most private information in order that he might make his living out
of it--not different in kind from the mendicancy which, even as a hobo,
he had scorned--and that, at the end, he should have discerned Io
Welland as the object of his scandal-chase; that fermented within him
like something turned to foulness.

At the office he reported "no story." Before going home he wrote a note
to the city desk.

CHAPTER XI

Impenetrability of expression is doubtless a valuable attribute to a
joss. Otherwise so many josses would not display it. Upon the stony and
placid visage of Mr. Greenough, never more joss-like than when, on the
morning after Banneker went to The Retreat, he received the resultant
note, the perusal thereof produced no effect. Nor was there anything
which might justly be called an expression, discernible between Mr.
Greenough's cloven chin-tip and Mr. Greenough's pale fringe of hair,
when, as