“Go ahead, Ralston!” cried Teddy Van De Water, from his end. “Some of us haven’t heard the story, though everybody saw those horrid things in the papers this morning. It was too bad!” Katharine had attempted to continue her conversation with Russell Vanbrugh, but it had proved impossible. Moreover, she was herself almost breathless with surprise at the sudden appeal to Ralston himself, when she had been taking it for granted that every one present, including his hosts, despised him, and secretly wished that he had not come. Van De Water had spoken from the end of the table. Frank Miner responded again from the other, looking hard at Katharine’s blank face, as he addressed John. “Tell it, Jack!” he cried. “Don’t be foolish. Everybody wants to know how it happened.” Ralston looked round the table once more, and saw that every one was expecting him to speak, all with curiosity, and some of the men with admiration. His eyes rested on Katharine for a moment, but she turned from him instantly--not coldly, as before, but as though she did not wish to meet his glance. “I can’t tell a story by halves,” said he. “If you really want to have it, you must hear it from the beginning. But I told Frank Miner this morning--he can tell it better than I.” “Go on, Jack--you’re only keeping everybody waiting!” said Hamilton Bright, from across the table. “Tell it all--about me, too--it will make them laugh.” John saw the honest friendship in the strong Saxon face, and knew that to tell the whole story was his best plan. “All right,” he said. “I’ll do my best. It won’t take long. In the first place--you won’t mind my going into details, Miss Van De Water?” “Oh, no--we should rather prefer it,” laughed the young girl, from her distant place. “Then I’ll go on. I’ve been going in for reform lately--I began last Monday morning. Yes--of course you all laugh, because I’ve not much of a reputation for reform, or anything else. But the statement is necessary because it’s true, and bears on the subject. Reform means claret and soda, and very little of that. It had rather affected my temper, as I wasn’t used to it, and I was sitting in the club yesterday afternoon, trying to read a paper and worrying about things generally, when Frank, there, wanted me to drink with him, and I wouldn’t, and I didn’t choose to tell him I was trying to be good, because I wasn’t sure that I was going to be. Anyhow, he wouldn’t take ‘no,’ and I wouldn’t say ‘yes’--and so I suppose I behaved rather rudely to him.” “Like a fiend!” observed Miner, from a distance. “Exactly. Then I was called to the telephone, and found that my uncle Robert wanted me at once, that very moment, and wouldn’t say why. So I came back in a hurry, and as I was coming out of the cloak-room with my hat and coat on I ran into Bright, who generally saves my life when the thing is to be done promptly. I suppose I looked rather wild, didn’t I, Ham?”