But that knowledge did not lessen Rod's growing anger at such tactics, nor still a little fear of the effect on Mary. This--this sort of thing precisely--was what she had foreseen and feared and shrunk from. It was only a passing phase, Rod knew. But he could see that it rankled. She bore herself stoutly, as impassive as a Chinese mandarin. No more than Rod himself would she or did she retreat under fire. She did her duty as a hostess in a difficult situation. But when they withdrew to their own rooms, at the end of an interminable evening, she lay back in a chair silent and thoughtful, while Rod spilled a vessel of wrath on his brother's head. "Don't get fussed up about it, Rod," she said at last. "It doesn't matter much, does it? If what I've seen of these people this afternoon and evening is a fair sample of their normal behavior, I wouldn't get on with them even if they wanted me to. I've overheard more suggestive things and double-edged remarks in the last few hours than I ever heard in all my life put together. If that's smartness, I'll never be smart. I don't feel as if I'd been slighted. I'm glad they didn't fall on my neck. I don't like them." "Nor I," Rod growled. "Grove always did prefer damaged goods. But I don't like them trying to put over anything like that on me--on us. That's all. It's dirty." "You can't do anything," Mary pointed out. "You can't challenge the assembled company to bestow courteous attention on your wife under pain of--what? If you even notice it, you'll only amuse them--make yourself ridiculous." "Certainly. That's why it's so damned annoying." "Forget it," she smiled. "Come and sit down by me. What does it matter?" "I'll lock horns with him yet," Rod muttered. Then, sitting on a hassock beside her with Mary's fingers weaving tangles in his hair, Rod forgot his irritation. It returned the following day. Grove moved about among his guests, bland, courteous, engaging. He was at home in the polite raillery that passes for wit in such gatherings, where open homage is paid chiefly to the social trinity of food, liquor and dancing, and where sex is no shrinking violet. Whenever his eyes met Rod's, Rod detected a malicious sparkle. Grove was enjoying the situation. And Rod yearned to make him smart for his petty, useless triumph. His exasperation grew with his helplessness. "Come on," he said to his wife at four in the afternoon. "You can leave the dinner arrangements to Stagg. Let's go across the channel and get the taste out of our mouths." They had dinner at Oliver Thorn's.