"I'll let you know when conditions are just right." Then, he added, as though in afterthought: "And I'll arrange so that you won't run up on Wilfred Horton." "What's the matter with Wilfred Horton?" demanded Samson, a shade curtly. "Nothing at all," replied Farbish, with entire gravity. "Personally, I like Horton immensely. I simply thought you might find things more congenial when he wasn't among those present." Samson was puzzled, but he did not fancy hearing from this man's lips criticisms upon friends of his friends. "Well, I reckon," he said, coolly, "I'd like him, too." "I beg your pardon," said the other. "I supposed you knew, or I shouldn't have broached the topic." "Knew what?" "You must excuse me," demurred the visitor with dignity. "I shouldn't have mentioned the subject. I seem to have said too much." "See here, Mr. Farbish," Samson spoke quietly, but imperatively; "if you know any reason why I shouldn't meet Mr. Wilfred Horton, I want you to tell me what it is. He is a friend of my friends. You say you've said too much. I reckon you've either said too much, or too little." Then, very insidiously and artistically, seeming all the while reluctant and apologetic, the visitor proceeded to plant in Samson's mind an exaggerated and untrue picture of Horton's contempt for him and of Horton's resentment at the favor shown him by the Lescotts. Samson heard him out with a face enigmatically set, and his voice was soft, as he said simply at the end: "I'm obliged to you." Farbish had hoped for more stress of feeling, but, as he walked home, he told himself that the sphinx-like features had been a mask, and that, when these two met, their coming together held potentially for a clash. He was judge enough of character to know that Samson's morbid pride would seal his lips as to the interview--until he met Horton. In point of fact, Samson was at first only deeply wounded. That through her kindness to him Adrienne was having to fight his battles with a close friend he had never suspected. Then, slowly, a bitterness began to rankle, quite distinct from the hurt to his sensitiveness. His birthright of suspicion and tendency to foster hatreds had gradually been falling asleep under the disarming kindness of these persons. Now, they began to stir in him again vaguely, but forcibly, and to trouble him. Samson did not appear at the Lescott house for two weeks after that. He had begun to think that, if his going there gave embarrassment to the girl who had been kind to him, it were better to remain away. "I don't belong here," he told himself, bitterly. "I reckon everybody that knows me in New York, except the Lescotts, is laughing at me behind my back."