But one could always count on the elder Miss Ingoldsby; Miss Augusta at once rushed into speech. “My dear Mrs. Avery, don’t go yet? I came back in order to tell Lavinia a piece of news--not that I fear it will affect her, for she is sound as the rock of Gibraltar. But, after all---- I daresay you don’t, being an artist, keep up with the daily news? Artists always have their heads in the clouds, don’t they say? I have heard that expression used in relation to them, at any rate. But aren’t you, my dear Mrs. Avery, worried?” This being startling, I paused in my determined progress towards the door to ask what she meant. “I allude,” she said as if she recited, “to the financial news of the day.” “I don’t,” I told her, “keep up with it.” With a visible slight annoyance, Mrs. Van Suydam enquired what she had to tell. “For of course you’ll tell it.” “I heard, today, from well authenticated sources which I’m not at liberty to quote, that several New York banks are on the verge of their Waterloo,” said Miss Augusta with satisfaction in having put it so neatly. Eva cried “Which banks?” and began to tremble. Miss Augusta’s gratification at this sensation was evident. “I don’t know, my dear girl. But do find out from Nicholas if it’s true--I certainly was told it on good authority--ahem!--Tony Bloodgood, to be exact, mentioned it to Gertrude--that he has lost money?” Eva gasped: “Spence, I must go home. I must go home at once.” I hastened to her. One never knew; and I was uneasy at the expression on the elder Mrs. Van Suydam’s face. Also, the interest of Miss Augusta Ingoldsby was not strictly impersonal. “We’ll go together,” I said firmly. She clutched my arm. “What shall I do?” I said, under my breath: “Listen to reason. I told you all of this, today, and you didn’t then lose your head.” The clutch of her fingers on my arm was painful. I cannot remember how we got out of the house. Back of my other unpleasant memories of the day is that of curious eyes following us to the door; in front of all other painful impressions is that of Spencer Mapes solicitously attending us. I muttered to him: “If you will kindly leave us, I can manage Eva.” Eva had a devastating trick of swinging like a peculiarly rapid pendulum, so that one was left behind, gaping, as she flew through the crises of her passionate nature. She said, with no preparation for it: “Do you realize that I’ve never had a break? Is it because I’m a woman?” Mapes said: “I thought you were upset over the panic.” I said to him, fiercely: “Can’t you let her alone? She’d forgotten it.” We disputed over her; and she walked between us, erect, absent-minded, steeping herself in her own thoughts, suffering through her own thoughts. And around the corner from Eleventh Street, and straight towards us, came Nicholas Van Suydam. The eager look of expectancy on his face savoured of the earlier days of their marriage. Eva whispered: “I forgot that I left word for him to join us at his mother’s.”