Clive turned his hollowly sick eyes on her in hopeless resignation. But the sight did not soften her peppery mood. “Clive,” she rebuked, “I’ve known you always. I knew your father. I know your brother--though I don’t mention that when I can help it. All of you have had plenty of faults. But not one of you was ever a fool. You, least of all. The war must have done queer things to your head as well as to your lungs and heart. No normal man, with all the brains you took with you to France, could have come back with so few. It isn’t in human nature. There’s a catch in this, somewhere.” Creede bowed his head in weary acceptance of her tirade. Then he looked with furtive appeal at Doris. But the girl was again sitting with tight-clenched hands, her eyes downcast, her soft lips twitching. From her averted face he looked to Vail. “I’m sorry, Thax,” he repeated heavily. “And I’m going. I’d rather. It’ll be pleasanter all around. If I can bother you to phone for a taxi I’ll go up and get my things together.” “No!” urged Thaxton, touched by his chum’s misery. “No, no, old man. Don’t be so silly. I tell you it’s all--” But Creede had slumped out of the room. Vail followed at his heels, still protesting noisily against the invalid’s decision. Miss Gregg watched them go. Then she turned to Doris. There was something defiant, something almost apprehensive, in the old lady’s aspect as she faced her niece. “Well?” she challenged. Doris sprang to her feet, her great dark eyes regarding Miss Gregg with fascinated horror. “Oh, Auntie!” she breathed, accusingly. “_Auntie!_” “Well,” bluffed the old lady with a laudable effort at swagger, “what then?” “Aunt Hester!” exclaimed the girl. “It was _I_ who couldn’t sleep a wink last night. Not _you_. I heard the stable clock strike every single hour from twelve to three. And--” “Well,” argued Miss Gregg, “what if you did? It’s nothing to boast about, is it? Have you any monopoly on hearing stable clocks strike? Have--?” “I had, last night,” responded the girl, “so far as our suite was concerned. I lay there and listened to you snoring. You went to sleep before you had been in bed ten minutes. And you never stopped snoring one moment till Macduff began to howl so horribly. Then you jumped up and--” “People always seem to think there’s something degrading about a snore,” commented Miss Gregg. “Personally, I like to have people snore. (As long as they do it out of earshot from _me_.) There’s something honest and wholesome about snoring. Just as there is in a hearty appetite. I’ve no patience with finicky eaters and noiseless sleepers. There’s something so disgustingly superior about them! Now when _I_ eat or sleep--” “Aunt Hester!” Doris dragged her back from the safety isles of philosophy to the facts of the moment. “You were sound asleep in your own bed all night--till the dog waked us. But you told the chief you didn’t sleep at all and you told him that awful rigmarole about hiding behind lowboys and--”