"Yes. Whenever she thought I wasn't paying attention her face would go--sort of dead tired and sad--all used up. I can't describe it. And one or two remarks she dropped didn't sound as happy as she meant them to. Then, Sunday morning, she had to get some work done, so I took Miss Goucher to church. I'm supposed to be a Catholic, you know; but I guess I'm not much of anything. I'd just as soon go to one kind of church as another, if the music's good. Anyway, it was a nice morning and Miss Goucher thought I'd like to see the Fifth Avenue parade; so we walked up to some silk-stocking church above Thirty-fourth Street, where they have a dandy choir; and back again afterwards. I stayed at the Brevoort, down near them, you know; and Miss Goucher certainly is a peach. We got along fine. And I found out from her how Mr. Phar's been acting. He's a bad actor, all right. I'm just as glad I didn't run into him. I might have done something foolish." "What, for instance?" I suggested. "Well," muttered Jimmy, "there's some things I can't stand. I might have punched his head." Phil whistled softly. "He's not what I call a white man," explained Jimmy, dogged and slow, as if to justify his vision of assault. "He's a painted pup." "Come, Jimmy!" Phil commanded. "Out with it! Hunt and I know he's been annoying Susan, but that's all we know. I supposed he might have been pressing his attentions too publicly. If it's more than that----" There was an unusual sternness in Phil's eye. Jimmy appealed from it to mine, but in vain. "Look here, Mr. Hunt," he blurted, "Susan's all right, of course--and so's Miss Goucher! They've got their eyes open. And maybe it's not up to me to say anything. But if I was in your place, I'd feel like giving two or three people down there a piece of my mind! Susan wouldn't thank me for saying so, I guess; she's modern--she likes to be let alone. Why, she laughed at me more than once for getting sort of hot! And I know I've a bunch to learn yet. But all the same," he pounded on, "I do know this: It was a dirty trick of Mr. Phar's not to stand up for Susan!" "Not stand up for her! What do you mean?" Phil almost barked. "Jimmy means, Phil," I explained, "that some rather vague rumors began not along ago to spread through Maltby's crowd in regard to Susan--as to why she found it advisable to leave New Haven. Many of his friends know me, of course--or know Gertrude; know all about us, at any rate. It's not very remarkable, then, that Susan's appearance in New York--and so far as Maltby's May-Flies know, in some sense under his wing--has set tongues wagging. I was afraid of it; but I know Maltby's set well enough to know that to-day's rumor, unless it's pretty sharply spiced, is soon forgotten. To-morrow's is so much fresher, you see. The best thing for innocent victims to do is to keep very still. And then, I confess, it seemed to me unlikely that Maltby would permit anything of the sort to go too far."