"I don't believe you quite realize how strongly people feel about the Cora case," she began. "Isn't it possible to drop it or compromise it or something, Milton?" In the reaction from argument and--coldness downtown he felt he could stand no more of it at home. "I wish you'd let that matter drop!" he said decidedly. "You couldn't understand it." She hesitated. A red spot appeared in either cheek. "I must say I _don't_ understand!" she countered. "It is inconceivable to me that a man like you should turn so easily against his class!" "My class?" he echoed wearily. "What do such creatures as Cora and Yankee Sullivan amount to?" she cried hotly, "I suppose you'll say _they_ are in your class next! How you can consider them of sufficient importance to go dead against your best friends on their account!" "It is because I am right and they are wrong." She was a little carried beyond herself. "Well, they all think the same way," she pointed out. "Aren't you a little--a little--" "Pig-headed," supplied Keith bitterly. "--to put your opinion against theirs?" she finished. Keith did not reply. This was Nan's last attempt. She did not bring up the subject again. But she withdrew proudly and completely from all participation in society. She refused herself to callers. Once the situation was thoroughly defined, she accepted it. If her husband decided to play the game in this way, she, too, would follow, whether she approved or not. Nan was loyal and a thoroughbred. And she was either too proud or too indifferent to fight it out with the other women, in the rough and tumble of social ambition. XLVI In this voluntary seclusion Nan saw laterally only two persons. One of these was Mrs. Sherwood. The ex-gambler's wife called frequently; and, for some reason, Nan never refused to see her, although she did not make her visitor particularly welcome. Often an almost overmastering impulse seized her to open her soul to this charming, sympathetic, tactful woman, but something always restrained her. Her heart was too sore. And since an inhibited impulse usually expresses itself by contraries, her attitude was of studied and aloof politeness. Mrs. Sherwood never seemed to notice this. She sat in the high-ceilinged "parlour," with its strange fresco of painted fish-nets, and chatted on in a cheerful monologue, detailing small gossipy items of news. She always said goodbye cordially, and went out with a wonderful assumption of ignorance that anything was wrong. Her visits did Nan good, although never could the latter break through the ice wall of reserve. Nan's conscience often hurt her that she could answer this genuine friendship with so little cordiality. She wondered dully how Mrs. Sherwood could bring herself to be so good to so cross-grained a creature as herself. As a matter of fact, the women were marking time in their relations--Mrs. Sherwood consciously, Nan unconsciously--until better days.