“By the bye,” said Ralston, “I wanted to ask you something. Did that fellow Crowdie hold his tongue? I suppose he was at the Assembly last night.” “Well--since you ask me--” Miner hesitated. “No--he didn’t. Bright gave it to him, though, for telling cousin Emma.” “Brute! How I hate that man! So he told cousin Emma, did he? And the rest of the family, too, I suppose.” “I suppose so,” answered Miner, knowing that Ralston meant Katharine. “Everybody knew about the row at the club, before the evening was half over. Teddy Van De Water said he supposed you’d back out of the dinner to-night and keep quiet till this blew over. I told Teddy that perhaps he’d better come round and suggest that to you himself this morning, if he wanted to understand things quickly. He grinned--you know how he grins--like an organ pipe in a white tie. But he said he’d heard Bright leathering into Crowdie--that’s one of Teddy’s expressions--so he supposed that things weren’t as bad as people said--and that Crowdie was only a ‘painter chap,’ anyhow. I didn’t know what that meant, but feebly pointed out that Crowdie was a great man, and that his wife was a sort of cousin of mine, and that she, at least, had a good chance of having some of cousin Robert’s money one of these days. Not that I wanted to defend Crowdie, or that I don’t like Teddy much better--but then, you know what I mean! He’ll be calling me ‘one of those literary chaps,’ next, with just the same air. One’s bound to stand up for art and literature when one’s a professional, you know, Jack. Wasn’t I right?” “Oh, perfectly!” answered Ralston, with a smile. “But will you do that for me, Frank?” “Of course I will. You’re one of my illusions, as I told you. I’m willing to do lots of things for my illusions. I’ll go now, and then I’ll come back and tell you what the old chap says. If by any chance he gets into a rage, I’ll tell him that I didn’t come so much to talk about you as to consult him about certain symptoms of nervous prostration I’m beginning to feel. He’s death on nervous prostration--he’s a perfect terror at it--he’ll hypnotise me, and put me into a jar of spirits, and paint my nose with nervine and pickled electricity and things, and sort of wake me up generally.” “All right--if you can stand it, I can,” said Ralston. “I’d go myself--only only--”