After a fashion Nan felt relieved by this interview, for she thought she discerned only Mrs. Morrell's influence, and this, she knew, she could easily overcome. While she waited for Keith's return from whatever inaccessible fastnesses he always occupied during these big afternoon receptions, she reviewed the situation, her indignation mounting. Downstairs, Wing Sam and his temporary assistants were clearing things away. Usually Nan superintended this, but to-day she did not care. When Keith finally entered the room, she burst out on him with a rapid and angry account of the whole situation as she saw it; but to her surprise he did not rise to it. His weary, spiritless, uninterested: acceptance of it astonished her to the last degree. To him her entanglement with the Cora affair--for at once he saw the trend of it all--seemed the last straw. Not even his own home was sacred. His spirit was so bruised and wearied that he actually could not rise to an explanation. He seemed to realize an utter hopelessness of making her see his point of view. This was not so strange when it is considered that this point of view, however firmly settled, was still a new and unexplained fact with himself. He contented himself with saying: "The Morrells had nothing whatever to do with it." It was the only thing that occurred to him as worth saying; but it was unfortunate, for it left Nan's irritation without logical support. Naturally that irritation was promptly transferred to him. "Then what, in heaven's name, is it?" she demanded. "My friends are all treating me as if I had the smallpox." "Cheerful lot of friends we've made in this town!" he said bitterly. "What is the matter with them?" she persisted. "The matter is they've taken me for a fool they could order around to suit themselves. They found they couldn't. Now they're through with me, even Cal Bennett," he added in a lower tone that revealed his hurt. She paused, biting her underlip. "Is the trouble anything to do with this Cora case?" she asked, suddenly enlightened by some vague, stray recollection. "Of course!" he replied crossly, exasperated at the nagging necessity of arousing himself to explanations. "There's no use arguing about it. I'm going to see it through in spite of that hound McDougall and his whole pack of curs!" "But why have you turned so against your friends?" she asked more gently, struck by his careworn look as he sprawled in the easy chair under the lamp. "I don't see! You'll get yourself disliked!" She did not press the matter further for the moment, but three days later she brought up the topic again. In the interim she had heard considerable direct and indirect opinion. She selected after dinner as the most propitious time for discussion. As a matter of fact, earlier in the day would have been better, before Keith's soul had been rubbed raw by downtown attrition.