The door of the directors' room closed upon them. The word passed along Main Street that Jack and William were closeted in the bank. Phil, walking downtown on an errand, with the happiness of her party still in her eyes, was not without her sense of the situation. At the breakfast-table her father, deeply preoccupied, had brought himself with an effort to review the happier events of the party. Knowing what was in his mind Phil mentioned the untoward misfortune that had cast Jack Holton of all men upon the threshold of her uncle's house. "It really didn't make any difference, daddy,--that man's coming. Everybody tried to forget it. And some of the young people didn't know him at all." "No; it didn't matter, Phil. Your Uncle Amzi is a fine gentleman: I never fully appreciated his goodness and generosity as much as I did last night." Phil did not know that Amzi had sought Kirkwood in the den where the lawyer had gone to take counsel with himself, and had blown himself purple in the face in his kind efforts to make light of the incident. The two men had never been drawn closer together in their lives than in that meeting. "It wasn't Uncle Amy's fault that the William Holtons were asked to the party; I think it was Aunt Kate who started that. And when I heard of it, it was all over and the invitations had been sent," Phil said. Kirkwood repeated his assurance that it made no difference in any way. And Phil remembered for a long time a certain light in his gentle, candid eyes as he said:-- "We get over most of our troubles in this world, Phil; and I want you to know that that particular thing doesn't hurt me any more. Only it was a shock; the man had aged so and his condition and the suddenness of it--But it's all over and it didn't spoil the party; that's the main thing." Phil was immensely relieved, for she knew that her father told the truth. Jack Holton greeted a number of old friends on his way to the bank, but the president emeritus of the college cut him. The cold stare he received from this old man, who had been president of Madison College for forty years, expressed a contempt that hurt. Mrs. King, in whose yard he had played as a boy, looked over his head, though he was confident she knew him. His nostrils caught no scent of roast veal in the familiar streets. At his brother's house his sister-in-law, whom he had never seen, had not appeared when he went down for his breakfast. He followed his brother into the directors' room in a defiant humor. They took account of each other with a frank curiosity begotten of their long separation. "You haven't changed much, Will. You've grown a little stouter than father did, but dear old Sam never lost his shape, and you're like him."