s, Ruth, they certainly
were--different."

Silence fell between them, separately dwelling upon that.

"Just how--different?" Ruth asked, for it seemed he was not going on.

"Why--mother stopped going out, and of course that made her all
different. You know what a lot those parties and doings meant to
mother."

She did not at once speak, her face working. Then: "I'm sorry," she
choked. "Need she have done that, Ted?" she added wistfully after a
moment.

He looked at her with that fine seriousness that made him seem older
than he was--and finer than she had known. "Well, I don't know, Ruth;
you know you don't feel very comfortable if you think people
are--talking. It makes you feel sort of--out of it; as if there was
something different about you."

"And father?" she urged, her voice quiet, strangely quiet. She was
sitting very still, looking intently at Ted.

"Well, father rather dropped out of it, too," he went on, his voice
gentle as if it would make less hard what it was saying. "He and mother
just seemed to want to draw back into their shells. I think--" He
stopped, then said: "I guess you really want to know, Ruth; it--it did
make a big difference in father. I think it went deeper than you may
have known--and maybe it's only fair to him you should know. It did make
a difference; I think it made a difference even in business. Maybe that
seems queer, but don't you know when a person doesn't feel right about
things he doesn't get on very well with people? Father got that way. He
didn't seem to want to be with people."

She did not raise her eyes at that. "Business hasn't gone very well, has
it, Ted?" she asked after a moment of silence, still not looking up.

"Pretty bad. And of course _that_ gets Cy," he added.

She nodded. "I guess there's a good deal to be said on Cy's side," she
murmured after a little, her hands working and her voice not steady.

Ted grunted something disdainful, then muttered: "He played things up
for all they were worth. Don't you think he ever missed anything!"

"Was that why Cy left town, Ted?" Ruth asked, speaking all the while in
that low, strange voice.

"Oh, he claims so," scoffed Ted. "But he can't make me believe any
family humiliation would have made him leave town if he hadn't had a
better thing somewhere else. But of course he _says_ that. That it was
too hard for him and Louise! Too bad about that little doll-face, isn't
it?"

Ruth made a gesture of remonstrance, bu