oom to library, as if driven by the
tangled furies of a Hungarian dance.

"Will that girl never stop playing?" he thought.

Betty came up to him.

"Talk to me, George."

He found himself reluctant, but two tables of bridge were forming, and
Betty didn't care to play. Lambert did, and sat down. George followed
Betty to a window seat, telling himself she wanted him only because
Lambert was for the time, lost to her.

"Now," she said, directly, "what is it, George?"

"What's what?" he asked with an attempt at good-humour.

Her question had made him uneasy, since it suggested that she had
observed the trouble he was endeavouring to bury. Would he never learn
to repress as Goodhue did? But even Goodhue, he recalled, had failed to
hide an acute suffering at a football game; and this game was infinitely
bigger, and the point he had just lost vastly more important than a
fumbled ball.

"You've changed," Betty was saying. "I'm a good judge, because I haven't
really seen you for nearly a year. You've seemed--I scarcely know how to
say it--unhappy?"

"Why not tired?" he suggested, listlessly. "You may not know it, but
I've been pretty hard at work."

She nodded quickly.

"I've heard a good deal from Lambert what you are doing, and something
from Squibs and Mrs. Squibs. You haven't seen much of them, either. Do
you mind if I say I think it makes them uneasy?"

"Scold. I deserve it," he said. "But I've written."

"I don't mean to scold," she smiled. "I only want to find out what makes
you discontented, maybe ask if it's worth while wearing yourself out to
get rich."

"I don't know," he answered. "I think so."

It was his first doubt. He looked at her moodily.

"You're not one to draw the long bow, Betty. Honestly, aren't you a
little cross with me on account of the Baillys?"

"Not even on my own account."

Her allusion was clear enough. George was glad Blodgett created a
diversion just then, lumbering in and bellowing to Lambert for news of
his sister. George listened breathlessly.

"Haven't seen her," Lambert said, and doubled a bid.

"Miss Alston?" Blodgett applied to Betty.

"Where should she be?" Betty answered.

"Got me puzzled," Blodgett muttered. "Responsibility. If anything
happened!"

Betty laughed.

"What could happen to her here?"

George guessed then where Sylvia had gone, and he experienced a strong
but temporal exaltation. Only a mental or a bodily hurt could have
driven Sylvia to her