The grey-haired lady started--was there no limit to his impudence? She had witnessed the torturing of Jessie. But Jessie was his fiancée; he had no such claim upon Mrs. Curtis. She answered, with iciness in her tone: “I could not undertake to dictate to my host in such a matter.” “Mrs. Curtis! You have founded a charity for the helping of stray cats and dogs!” These words rose to Hal’s lips; but he did not say them. His eyes moved on. Who else might help to bully a Harrigan? Next to Mrs. Curtis sat Reggie Porter, with a rose in the button-hole of his dinner-jacket. Hal knew the rôle in which Reggie was there--a kind of male chaperon, an assistant host, an admirer to the wealthy, a solace to the bored. Poor Reggie lived other people’s lives, his soul perpetually a-quiver with other people’s excitements, with gossip, preparations for tea-parties, praise of tea-parties past. And always the soul was pushing; calculating, measuring opportunities, making up in tact and elegance for distressing lack of money. Hal got one swift glimpse of the face; the sharp little black moustaches seemed standing up with excitement, and in a flash of horrible intuition Hal read the situation--Reggie was expecting to be questioned, and had got ready an answer that would increase his social capital in the Harrigan family bank! Across the aisle sat Genevieve Halsey: tall, erect, built on the scale of a statue. You thought of the ox-eyed Juno, and imagined stately emotions; but when you came to know Genevieve, you discovered that her mind was slow, and entirely occupied with herself. Next to her was Bob Creston, smooth-shaven, rosy-cheeked, exuding well-being--what is called a “good fellow,” with a wholesome ambition to win cups for his athletic club, and to keep up the score of his rifle-team of the state militia. Jolly Bob might have spoken, out of his good heart; but he was in love with a cousin of Percy’s, Betty Gunnison, who sat across the table from him--and Hal saw her black eyes shining, her little fists clenched tightly, her lips pressed white. Hal understood Betty--she was one of the Harrigans, working at the Harrigan family task of making the children of a pack-pedlar into leaders in the “younger set!” Next sat “Vivie” Cass, whose talk was of horses and dogs and such ungirlish matters; Hal had discussed social questions in her presence, and heard her view expressed in one flashing sentence--“If a man eats with his knife, I consider him my personal enemy!” Over her shoulder peered the face of a man with pale eyes and yellow moustaches--Bert Atkins, cynical and world-weary, whom the papers referred to as a “club-man,” and whom Hal’s brother had called a “tame cat.” There was “Dicky” Everson, like Hal, a favourite of the ladies, but nothing more; “Billy” Harris, son of another “coal man”; Daisy, his sister; and Blanche Vagleman, whose father was Old Peter’s head lawyer, whose brother was the local counsel, and publisher of the Pedro _Star_.