She said this with feeling and no little vehemence. Mr. Gilder, who knew something of the circumstances, understood and almost sympathized. “I was going to say that down at Fossaway I often felt that it wasn’t right to be in that big house with no lady there except the housekeeper, who of course is a servant, and---- Oh! here you are, Gladys!” XXVIII She rose as Gladys brought in the tea tray and laid it carefully on the table. Gladys was sixty, toothless, and more or less chinless. She wore most of her hair in a bun, which overflowed, drooping over her neck in picturesque confusion. Gladys had the smile of one who enjoyed the privilege of entertaining a visitor. She smiled at the girl, smiled at Mr. Gilder, and smiled herself out of the room. Fabrian Gilder thought he had never seen a more ghastly exhibition. “You’re a good friend of Gwyn’s, aren’t you?” he asked, as he sipped his tea. She dropped her eyes in maidenly embarrassment. “We are rather good friends, but no more. We may be something closer--who knows? He has always behaved like a perfect gentleman and treated me like a lady. I must say that for Arthur. But he’s a little trying; don’t you find him so?” she asked, with a girlish naïveté that was a little overdone. “I have left him,” said Mr. Gilder briefly. “He and I disagreed over a question of policy and I retired. In fact, we had a very bad row and came to blows--I tell you this because you’ll probably learn the facts from him sooner or later.” Mary was shocked; and when Mary was shocked she covered her rather generous mouth with her two small white hands. “You don’t tell me!” she said in a hushed voice. “Blows! Is that it?” She nodded her head to his lip. “That’s it,” said Gilder shortly. “Blows!” repeated Mary Wenner. “How perfectly disgusting and vulgar!” “I wanted to talk to you about Arthur Gwyn,” Gilder broke in upon her horrified wonder. “We’re not good friends, but that doesn’t mean I bear him any malice. But, naturally, as we are parted, I don’t feel called upon to protect him and stand between him and his dupes”--he emphasized the last word--“as I have done in the past. You know him as well as I do,” he went on, as she was about to speak. “You know his vanity; you know how perfectly unreliable and insincere he is; you know, too, that he’d get out of any promise he ever made, even if it was in black and white.” He was watching her narrowly all the time he spoke, and now he saw her eyebrows arch. “Indeed?” she said coldly. “I don’t know anything about the law, but I can’t see how a gentleman, or a common man for the matter of that, could get out of--what is the expression--legal obligations?”