"Your own fault." This problem was so clear, so unconfused to her. "It wasn't all my fault," he said. "You didn't have to take a drink." His voice fell to a pathetic whimper. "I was showing you hospitality the best way I knew how. You won't never know how you hurt my feelin's." The problem instantly became complicated again. Perhaps she _had_ hurt his rudimentary sense of courtesy. Perhaps Walter Babson would have sympathized with Phil, not with her. She peeped at Phil. He trailed along with a forlorn baby look which did not change. She was very uncomfortable as she said a brief good-night at the flat. She half wished that he would give her a chance to recant. She saw him and his injured feelings as enormously important. She undressed in a tremor of misgiving. She put her thin, pretty kimono over her nightgown, braided her hair, and curled on the bed, condemning herself for having been so supercilious to the rat who had never had a chance. It was late--long after eleven--when there was a tapping on the door. She started, listened rigidly. Phil's voice whispered from the hall: "Open your door just half an inch, Miss Golden. Something I wanted to say." Her pity for him made his pleading request like a command. She drew her kimono close and peeped out at him. "I knew you were up," he whispered; "saw the light under your door. I been so worried. I _didn't_ mean to shock you, or nothing, but if you feel I _did_ mean to, I want to apologize. Gee! me, I couldn't sleep one wink if I thought you was offended." "It's all right--" she began. "Say, come into the dining-room. Everybody gone to bed. I want to explain--gee! you gotta give me a chance to be good. If _you_ don't use no good influence over me, nobody never will, I guess." His whisper was full of masculine urgency, husky, bold. She shivered. She hesitated, did not answer. "All right," he mourned. "I don't blame you none, but it's pretty hard--" "I'll come just for a moment," she said, and shut the door. She was excited, flushed. She wrapped her braids around her head, gentle braids of pale gold, and her undistinguished face, thus framed, was young and sweet. She hastened out to the dining-room. What was the "parlor" by day the Grays used for their own bedroom, but the dining-room had a big, ugly, leather settee and two rockers, and it served as a secondary living-room. Here Phil waited, at the end of the settee. She headed for a rocker, but he piled sofa-cushions for her at the other end of the settee, and she obediently sank down there. "Listen," he said, in a tone of lofty lamentation, "I don't know as I can ever, _ever_ make you understand I just wanted to give you a good time. I seen you was in mourning, and I thinks, 'Maybe you could brighten her up a little--'" "I am sorry I didn't understand." "Una, Una! Do you suppose you could ever stoop to helping a bad egg like me?" he demanded.