you dreadful man, what have you been
doing?"

"Have I been poaching on YOUR preserves?" he asked promptly.

"No, not mine," she said, "but--" and then she hesitated.

"On Mr. Duval's?" he asked.

"No," she said, "not his--but everybody else's! He was telling me about
it to-day--there's a most dreadful uproar. He wanted me to try to find
out what you were up to, and who was behind it."

Montague listened, wonderingly. Did Mrs. Winnie mean to imply that her
husband had asked her to try to worm his business secrets out of him?
That was what she seemed to imply. "I told him I never talked business
with my friends," she said. "He can ask you himself, if he chooses. But
what DOES it all mean, anyhow?"

Montague smiled at the naive inconsistency.

"It means nothing," said he, "except that I am trying to get justice
for a client."

"But can you afford to make so many powerful enemies?" she asked.

"I've taken my chances on that," he replied.

Mrs. Winnie answered nothing, but looked at him with wondering
admiration in her eyes. "You arc different from the men about you," she
remarked, after a while-and her tone gave Montague to understand that
there was one person who meant to stand by him.

But Mrs. Winnie Duval was not all Society. Montague was amused to
notice with what suddenness the stream of invitations slacked up; it
was necessary for Alice to give her calling list many revisions.
Freddie Vandam had promised to invite them to his place on Long Island,
and of course that invitation would never come; likewise they would
never again see the palace of the Lester Todds, upon the Jersey
mountain-top.

Oliver put in the next few days in calling upon people to explain his
embarrassing situation. He washed his hands of his brother's affairs,
he said; and his friends might do the same, if they saw fit. With the
Robbie Wallings he had a stormy half hour, about which he thought it
best to say little to the rest of the family. Robbie did not break with
him utterly, because of their Wall Street Alliance; but Mrs. Robbie's
feeling was so bitter, he said, that it would be best if Alice saw
nothing of her for a while. He had a long talk with Alice, and
explained the situation. The girl was utterly dumbfounded, for she was
deeply grateful to Mrs. Robbie, and fond of her as well; and she could
not believe that a friend could be so cruelly unjust to her.

The upshot of the whole situation was a very painful episode. A few