"And oh!" said Stan ten minutes later; "I forgot, too! I met a chap, too--forgotten all about it. That fellow I gave a dressing-down about India to up at the Pratts' there. He stopped me in the street, and what do you think? It was all I could do not to laugh. He asked me whether I could put him on to a job! Me, who haven't started myself yet!... I said I could put him on to a drink if that would do--I had to stand somebody a drink, just to wet my luck, and I didn't see another soul--and I fetched it all out of my pocket in a pub in St. Martin's Lane--," he fetched it all out of his pocket again now, "--fetched it out as if it was nothing--you should have seen him look at it!--Strong his name is--didn't catch it that day he was burbling such stuff----" Dorothy's eyes shone. Dear old Stan! That too pleased her. No doubt the Pratts would be told that Stan was going about so heavily laden with money that he had to divide the weight in order not to walk lopsided---- Worn woollies for His Impudence's Bits!---- Rather not! There would be a parcel round from Harrods' to-morrow! VI POLICY Amory would have been far less observant than she was had it not occurred to her, as she left Dorothy's flat that day, that she had been hustled out almost unceremoniously. She hoped--she sincerely hoped--that she did not see the reason. To herself, as to any other person not absolutely case-hardened by prejudice, the thing that presented itself to her mind would not have been a reason at all; but these conventional people were so extraordinary, and in nothing more extraordinary than in their regulations for receiving callers of the opposite sex. That was what she meant by the vulgarizing of words and the leaping to ready-made conclusions. A conventional person coming upon herself and Mr. Strong closeted together would have his stereotyped explanation; but that was no reason why anybody clearer-eyed and more open-minded and generous-hearted should fall into the same degrading supposition. It would be ridiculous to suppose that there was "anything" between Dorothy and Mr. Miller. Amory knew that in the past Dorothy had had genuine business with Mr. Miller. And so now had she herself with Mr. Strong. And as for Stan's going about in open daylight with a "dark Spanish type"--a type traditionally wickeder than any other--Amory thought nothing of that either. Stan had as much right to go about with his Spanish female as Cosimo had to take Britomart Belchamber to a New Greek Society matinée or to one of Walter's Lectures. Amory would never have dreamed of putting a false interpretation on these things.