Whittenden pricked up his ears, partly at the statement, partly at the unfamiliar name. He had felt sure that he had heard "I, Scott, take thee, Catia." In his more mellow New York life, such transforming evolution was less common. However, names were a detail. It was the fact he challenged. "Your wife? But how can she stay outside it, Brenton?" "Oh, she's not outside it, in a sense. Before the boy came, she was in all the guilds and parish teas and that. Really," Brenton spoke with a blind optimism; "she was very popular. But, in the vital things one thinks and feels--Whittenden, I don't imagine any woman ever really can share those things with us men. We are created different. We can't go inside each other's shells." And in that final utterance, it seemed to Whittenden, Scott Brenton voiced the saddest phase of all his present unbelief. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO "Still, Reed, I rather grudge the time," Whittenden said to his host when, dinner over, that same night, he flung himself into a chair at Opdyke's side. "For all practical purposes, it was a wasted afternoon. I'd much rather have been here with you." "You'd have been quite _de trop_, old man. Olive Keltridge was here, two hours, and filled me up with all the gossip of the town. Besides, you were filling yourself up with ozone, and preparing to make a night of it. Apropos--Ramsdell!" "Yes, sir?" Ramsdell appeared upon the threshold of the outer room. "Go to bed, like a Christian, when you get ready. No need for you to become a martyr, because Mr. Whittenden and I wish to carouse till all hours. When I need you, Mr. Whittenden will come to wake you, and you can appear in your pajamas, if you choose. Isn't that all right, Whittenden? Good night, Ramsdell." Then, as Ramsdell vanished, Reed settled himself with a little sigh. "It's a fearsome responsibility, Whittenden," he said; "to win this sort of sheep-dog devotion. Ramsdell, on my grilly days, would like nothing better than to stand and let me shy things at his head. It is beautiful; but it gets a trifle sultry. A little downright cussedness helps to clear the air occasionally; but cussed is the one thing Ramsdell isn't. I suppose it is because he is the product of the ages; it goes with his misplaced aspirates." Whittenden struck a match. "The sheep-dog thing is worth the having, though. Best hang on to it, Reed. It doesn't come to most of us too often." Opdyke eyed him rather mirthfully. "What's the matter, man?" he queried. "Did your own sheep dog growl at you, this afternoon?" "Mine?" "Brenton. He counts you as the great formative influence of his life, and adores you accordingly." "Not now. I knew he had been through the phase, Opdyke. In fact, I had rather counted on its lasting; but it hasn't." "From which I infer that he showed his teeth, to-day. What was the matter? Did you try to stroke his head, and accidentally hit him on the raw?" "Not consciously. It's only that I've lost all my helpful grip on him."