She noticed that Jackson, who was seated between Mrs. Stewart and Mrs. Phillips, was drinking a good deal of champagne. She thought that he was finding the dinner as intolerably dull as she found it, for he rarely drank champagne. When the women gathered in the drawing-room for coffee, the topic of the Crawfords' disaster had reached the anecdotal stage. "Poor Linda! Do you remember how she hated Chicago? She's been living at Cannes this season, hasn't she? I suppose she'll come straight home now. Does she own that place in the Berkshires?" "No, everything was in his name." "He was one of the kind who would keep everything in his own hands." "Even that ranch doesn't belong to Ted, I hear." "My, what a tragedy it is!" There seemed to be no end to the talk about the lost money. Helen sat limply in her chair. The leaden dulness of the dinner-talk, the dead propriety and conventionality of the service, the dishes, the guests, had never before so whelmed her spirit as they did to-night. These good people were stung into unusual animation because a man had died leaving his family not poor, but within sight of poverty. For poverty is the deadliest spectre to haunt the merchant class at their lying down and at their uprising. When the men came in, murmuring among themselves fragments of the same topic, Helen felt as though she might shriek out or laugh hysterically, and as soon as she could she clutched her husband, just as he was sitting down beside Mrs. Pemberton. "Take me away, Francis. It's awful," she whispered. "What's the matter?" he asked in quick concern. "Don't you feel well?" "Yes, yes, I am all right. No, I am tired. My head aches. Can't we leave? I shall do something silly--come!" As they got into their carriage, he demanded, "What was the matter?" "Nothing,--just the awful dulness of it,--such people,--such talk, talk, talk about poor Mr. Crawford's money!" "I thought the crowd was all right," he grumbled. "The best out here--what was the matter? Your nerves must be wrong." "Yes, my nerves are wrong," she assented. Then they were silent, and from the heat, fatigue, and champagne he relapsed into a doze on the way home. But when they reached the house he woke up briskly enough and began to talk of the dinner again:-- "Nell, Mrs. Phillips was speaking to me to-night about Venetia. She's worried to death over the girl. The men say pretty rough things about her, you know. Little fool! She'd better marry Lane if he wants her still, and keep quiet." "Like mother, like daughter," Helen replied dryly. "And of the two I prefer the daughter." "What makes you say that? Louise is all right; just likes to have her hand squeezed now and then." "Phew!" Helen exclaimed impatiently.