Susan glanced sharply at her husband. He tried to meet her honest eyes, but failed. The impulse surged within him to confess, to ask forgiveness, to promise to run straight for the future. The horns of the dilemma pierced his vitals. How could he expose James without revealing himself stark naked to the wife whose good opinion was dearer to him than all the treasures in his sanctuary? She beheld him squirming, and hastened to draw the wrong conclusion. James, of course—gallant youth—had threatened to take Posy without her stockings. She said tartly: "James is fighting for our Posy." "No, he ain’t. He’s fighting—and hittin’ below the belt, too—for things. These things." "I don’t believe it." "Right! You can believe this, I shall fight to a finish. No quarter—see?" "Very well. Good-night!" She rose, whey-faced, but resolute. "What d’ye mean by ’good-night’?" "I’m going to sleep with Posy." "You ain’t?" "Yes, I am!" She went out slowly, not closing the door. Quinney listened to her familiar steps as she mounted the oak stairs. She ascended higher and higher till she reached Posy’s room. Quinney heard the door shut, and then—significant sound—the click of a turning key. He appeared confounded. *CHAPTER XXI* *MABEL DREDGE* *I* Quinney telephoned early the next morning to Tom Tomlin, asking him to come to Soho Square before ten. Posy did not descend to breakfast, and during that meal Susan preserved an obstinate silence. Quinney gobbled up his bacon, drank three cups of tea, and hurried to the sanctuary, where a pile of letters left unanswered the day before awaited him. Mabel Dredge, notebook in hand, greeted him perfunctorily. Quinney, lacerated by his own anxieties, noted a dreary tone in the girl’s voice. Many excellent persons never recognize trouble in others till they are suffering from trouble of their own. Of such was our hero. He had passed a wretched night, and, as he shaved, was constrained to perceive its ravages upon his face. Upon Mabel’s face, also, he seemed to catch a glimpse of faint lines and shadows, as if the spider Insomnia had woven a web across it. "Anything wrong?" he inquired. "Nothing," replied Mabel tartly.