"Whisperer stuff?" he repeated, in a dazed, almost startled way; and when Billy looked startled he was not at his best. Some years ago he had been considered handsome: a big, athletic fellow with wavy auburn hair brushed back from a low forehead, reddish bronze skin, and big black eyes like those of his sister, Lady West. But the auburn hair had faded and thinned, growing far back on the forehead, which had now become unnaturally high. He was less athletic that he had been, because his principal exercise was taken indoors these days, and consisted of bridge and poker, poker and bridge, varied by roulette. His splendid muscular development was slowly degenerating into fat; and his large face was all red without the bronze. His eyes, too, had changed, and though still big had a goggling prominence that was not attractive. This was why he did not, when startled, look his best. The eyes goggled--his wife said to herself--like a pollywog's. And aloud she said to him: "_Don't_ pretend not to know what I mean by 'Whisperer' stuff." "I was asleep," Lowndes excused himself, mildly. "You don't need to tell me that by word of _mouth_," Natalie shrugged. "You've been advertising the fact through another organ. Besides, you never can keep awake fifteen minutes after dinner if we're alone together. Not that it matters! ... What I asked was, _have_ you seen 'the Whisperer stuff' in this week's _Inner Circle_?" "No," returned Lowndes. "Don't you know I never read the rag? I've told you so pretty often." "Everybody tells everybody else that they never read it. Yet I suppose it sells hundreds of thousand a week. My copy's just come in. Jane brought it--and you didn't hear her because you were snoring. I thought you might have seen it at the club before you left, and not said anything so as to make me speak first." "Why, has the viper got in a dig against us?" "Vipers don't dig. No, thanks to Heaven or the other thing, there's nothing on us. But it's all about someone you're just as much interested in--_more_ interested than you are in me, anyhow. Juliet Claremanagh." "Oh!" Billy sat up straight in his chair, though he did not seem to be as intensely excited as his wife had thought he would be. "Does the pig mention her by name?" "The pig does not. He might as well, though, for everybody will know who's meant. By Jove, I wouldn't be _Juliet_ to-night!" "I believe you!" grunted Lowndes. But he did not believe her. He seldom did; and in this instance not at all, because he was sure she would give her eyes to be Juliet, just as sure as that he would give his to be Juliet's husband. "What's the racket this time?" "I'll read the stuff aloud to you," said his wife; and began: "Let's Whisper!" "_That a certain foreign gentleman of title, with one of the prettiest and richest young wives in New York, is much to be sympathized with, because he has got a bad cold._