It was such little things which isolated Cecily. She did not go to her father’s house again for weeks. She was apologetic for being a drawback and yet she could not enter into so many of the things the others made their habits. The knowledge, too, that Della felt that Cecily had made a mess of things and that all her sympathies were with Dick kept her away. The thought of Della as her critic was intolerable to her pride. Shut off from her own family, she was equally shut off from Dick’s mother. Mrs. Harrison had been away at the time of the actual break and she was humiliated by it all. Most seriously of all was she hurt by the fact that Dick had gone to his club and not home to her. When he did come to her he absolutely refused to discuss the situation. So Mrs. Harrison went to Cecily and found it equally hard to get information from her. “You’re the talk of the town--you and Dick--and both of you mute. What is the trouble? Has Dick been misbehaving himself?” “No,” answered Cecily. “No, indeed, Mrs. Harrison. It is just that we don’t seem very happy and I thought--we hoped it would be better for us if we separated.” “But without a reason!” “We don’t agree about marriage. It’s so impossible to explain.” “Is this stuff I hear about your refusing to go into society true? Or is it true that Dick is enamored of this Mrs. Allenby?” That struck fire. “It is quite true that Dick and I did not agree about the kind of society we cared to enter. What there is in any feeling for Mrs. Allenby is really for Dick to say, Mrs. Harrison.” “It’s ridiculous. He’s not in love with that young woman.” “He prefers her type of woman to what he calls the domestic type,” answered Cecily coldly. There was nothing in this little woman, so annoyed about scandal, to excite any pity or kindly feeling in her at all. Mrs. Harrison rose, tapping her fingers nervously on her bag. “It’s an extremely unfortunate situation. I would be prepared to give you every support, Cecily, if I believed that Dick had misbehaved himself at all. But if you have thrown him over, broken up his home for the sake of a--a theory, it is one of the most cruel and unnecessary things I have ever heard of. Men are men. They demand a little amusement. If you refuse to allow him that you must expect----” “Please, Mrs. Harrison. There’s nothing to be gained by all this, surely.” The little woman drove off, her angry, alert little head looking straight ahead through the window of her limousine. “Didn’t Grandmother Harrison bring me anything?” asked Dorothea, running in a little too late to speak to her grandmother. “Not to-day, dear. She was in a hurry.” “She nearly always does,” said Dorothea, with some disappointment.