did not even put an
arm around her. "I don't know, Beatrice. You have wounded me more deeply
this day than I have ever been wounded in all my life before. I shall
try in time to forgive you, but--I do not know."

* * * * *

They were all gone now, all but Anthony and his old friend, Johnson
Boller.

It was in fact nearly noon, for with the tension removed Mary had gone
into the details of last night; and after a little even Robert Vining
had laughed. He at least knew Anthony Fry and he believed Johnson Boller
to be one of the most harmless fat men in existence, so that when he had
heard it all even Robert fell to chuckling.

And now they were gone with Mary, leaving behind a conviction in
Anthony's bosom that Mary was really a very charming young girl; leaving
an impression, too, that, could twenty years have been swept from his
forty-five, he might even have undertaken to win her away from Robert!
This last impression was transitory in the extreme, however; it endured
for perhaps forty-five seconds.

Hobart Hitchin was gone; he had vanished somewhere about the middle of
the session, leaving Richard's trousers, and for a long time nobody even
noticed that he was among the missing. To the best of Johnson Boller's
memory, he left just after Richard answered the long distance call and
assured his father that all was well.

Beatrice was gone, too. She had left all wreathed in smiles, since the
idiot that was her husband could not maintain his chilliness for more
than five minutes. In a dusky corner, Johnson and his cyclonic lady had
kissed eighteen times, lingeringly, and then she had left him to pack up
and follow, while she went personally to the five-thousand-dollar
apartment to prepare the things he most liked for luncheon.

And now Johnson Boller had packed the grip, while Anthony lounged, tired
out, weak in knees and hands, trembling every now and then and gazing
into the blue cigar smoke above him.

"The next time I come to stay with you I'm going to bring a chaperon,"
Boller mused.

"Do."

"You came pretty near wrecking my home that time, Anthony."

"Pah!" snarled Anthony.

Johnson Boller pursued the strain no further. Instead, with a shrug of
the shoulders, he picked up a book from the top of the case and turned
its pages idly. After which he smiled suddenly and said, with the utmost
alertness.

"You have a lot of poetry, haven't you?"

"I'm fond of it," said Anthon