“Conover? _I_ didn’t bring him. Your father--” “He is your friend, though,” she insisted, “And he frightened me and he behaved so abominably. And everybody laughed when he went to sleep. I could have died of mortification.” “But why?” he reasoned. “_You_ weren’t responsible for him. If anyone had cause to feel mortified it was Miss Shevlin who sat beside him. Yet she--” “Please don’t talk about her!” demanded Letty with a flash of watery dignity, “I have enough to bear without that. If she chose to sit up, looking unconcerned, and talking to him as if nothing had happened, and keeping the brute wide awake and interested all the rest of the evening--it was probably because she knew no better. I suppose her sort of people--” And here the gods deprived Amzi Nicholas Caine of wisdom. “She’s a little thoroughbred!” he interposed stoutly, “I never saw anything better done in my life than her treatment of that poor, sheepish, suddenly-awakened chap. It made one ashamed of having wanted to laugh. I--” “If you are going to take other people’s part against me,” sniffed Letty, “you needn’t trouble to wait here any longer. Goodnight. I am very tired and _very_ miserable.” Caine forthwith performed prodigies of self abasement that little by little wooed Letty back from tears to temper. “Just the same!” she snapped. “It _was_ your fault. If it hadn’t been for you, I’m quite sure Father would never have invited him.” “I never heard of your father’s sacrificing his own wishes to that extent for my sake,” said Caine, unwarily. “If he invited Conover out of compliment to me, he didn’t think it important enough to tell me so. Shall I thank him?” “No, no!” cried Letty in alarm. “And,” with recovering self-control, “I never want to see that man again as long as I live. I feel--_strangled_--when he is near me. As if he were trying to master _me_ as he does his railroads and legislatures. He hypnotizes me, with his mud-colored eyes and that great lower jaw. I--I _hate_ him. I’ll--I’ll never have to see him again, _will_ I? Promise me!” Punishment had given place to a demand for coddling. Caine rose ardently to the occasion. Yet she was not content. “_Promise me!_” she reiterated, “Promise me he’ll never come here again.” “He’ll have to pay a dinner call,” protested Caine. “Even Conover knows enough to do that, I’m afraid. If he doesn’t, Miss Shevlin will tell him.” “I won’t be at home!” she declared, fearfully, “I--he can’t _make_ me see him. I never want to see either of them again. _Either_ of them. Promise me I needn’t. Promise me you’ll thrash him if he annoys me.” She peered coyly up at him from between thin, soaked lashes; her nose quivering. But, for once, loverlike heroics were lacking. For, even as he started to voice the idle promise, a picture of Blacarda,--smashed and unrecognizable, screaming in agony of terror--flashed into Caine’s mind. And the pardonable boast stuck midway in his throat.