es.

Leslie's partner, wandering into the hotel at six o'clock, found from
the disordered condition of the room that Leslie had been back, had
apparently bathed, shaved and made a careful toilet, and gone out again.
Joe found himself unexpectedly at a loose end. Filled, with suppressed
indignation he commenced to dress, getting out a shirt, hunting his
evening studs, and lining up what he meant to say to Leslie over his
defection.

Then, at a quarter to seven, Leslie came in, top-hatted and
morning-coated, with a yellowing gardenia in his buttonhole and his
shoes covered with dust.

"Hello, Les," Joe said, glancing up from a laborious struggle with a
stud. "Been to a wedding?"

"Why?"

"You look like it."

"I made a call, and since then I've been walking."

"Some walk, I'd say," Joe observed, looking at him shrewdly. "What's
wrong, Les? Fair one turn you down?"

"Go to hell," Leslie said irritably.

He flung off his coat and jerked at his tie. Then, with it hanging
loose, he turned to Joe.

"I'm going to tell you something. I know it's safe with you, and I need
some advice. I called on a woman this afternoon. You know who she is.
Beverly Carlysle."

Joe whistled softly.

"That's not the point," Leslie declaimed, in a truculent voice. "I'm not
defending myself. She's a friend; I've got a right to call there if I
want to."

"Sure you have," soothed Joe.

"Well, you know the situation at home, and who Livingstone actually is.
The point is that, while that poor kid at home is sitting around killing
herself with grief, Clark's gone back to her. To Beverly Carlysle."

"How do you know?"

"Know? I saw him this afternoon, at her house."

He sat still, moodily reviewing the situation. His thoughts were a
chaotic and unpleasant mixture of jealousy, fear of Nina, anxiety over
Elizabeth, and the sense of a lost romantic adventure. After a while he
got up.

"She's a nice kid," he said. "I'm fond of her. And I don't know what to
do."

Suddenly Joe grinned.

"I see," he said. "And you can't tell her, or the family, where you saw
him!"

"Not without raising the deuce of a row."

He began, automatically, to dress for dinner. Joe moved around the room,
rang for a waiter, ordered orange juice and ice, and produced a bottle
of gin from his bag. Leslie did not hear him, nor the later preparation
of the cocktails. He was reflecting bitterly on the fact that a man who
married built himself a wall against roman