"I shall tell her, of course," said Mrs. Tresslyn, and lifted her lorgnon.

He went out, filled to the throat with rage and resentment. His strong
body was bent as if against a gale, and his hands were tightly clenched in
his overcoat pockets. In his haste to get away from the house, he had
fairly flung himself into the ulster that Rawson held for him, and the
collar of his coat showed high above the collar of the greatcoat,--a most
unusual lapse from orderliness on the part of this always careful dresser.

He was returning to his grandfather's house. Old Templeton Thorpe would be
waiting there for him, and Mr. Thorpe's man would be standing outside the
library door as was his practice when his master was within, and there
would be a sly, patient smile on the servant's lips but not in his sombre
eyes. He was returning to his grandfather's house because he had promised
to come back and tell the old man how he had fared at the home of his
betrothed. The old man had said to him earlier in the afternoon that he
would know more about women than he'd ever known before by the time his
interview was over, and had drily added that the world was full to
overflowing of good women who had not married the men they
loved,--principally, he was just enough to explain, because the men they
loved preferred to marry other women.

Braden had left him seated in the library after a stormy half-hour; and as
he rushed from the room, he found Mr. Thorpe's man standing in the hall
outside the door, just as he always stood, waiting for orders with the
sly, patient smile on his lips.

For sixty years Templeton Thorpe had lived in the house near Washington
Square, and for thirty-two of them Wade had been within sound of his
voice, no matter how softly he called. The master never rang a bell, night
or day. He did not employ Wade to answer bells. The butler could do that,
or the parlour-maid, if the former happened to be tipsier than usual. Wade
always kept his head cocked a little to one side, in the attitude of one
listening, and so long had he been at it that it is doubtful if he could
have cocked it the other way without snapping something in his neck. That
right ear of his was open for business twenty-four hours out of the day.
The rest of his body may have slept as soundly as any man's, but his ear
was always awake, on land or sea. It was his boast that he had never had a
vacation.

Braden, after his long ride down Fifth Avenue on the stage