A half-hour later he was passing the door of the old parlor which Mrs. Durgin still kept for hers, on his way up to his room, when a sound of angry voices came out to him. Then the voice of Mrs. Durgin defined itself in the words: “I'm not goin' to have to ask any more folks for their rooms on your account, Jeff Durgin--Mr. Westover! Mr. Westover, is that you?” her voice broke off to call after him as he hurried by, “Won't you come in here a minute?” He hesitated, and then Jeff called, “Yes, come in, Mr. Westover.” The painter found him sitting on the old hair-cloth sofa, with his stick between his hands and knees, confronting his mother, who was rocking excitedly to and fro in the old hair-cloth easy-chair. “You know these folks that Jeff's so crazy about?” she demanded. “Crazy!” cried Jeff, laughing and frowning at the same time. “What's crazy in wanting to go off on a drive and choose your own party?” “Do you know them?” Mrs. Durgin repeated to Westover. “The Vostrands? Why, yes. I knew Mrs. Vostrand in Italy a good many years ago, and I've just been calling on her and her daughter, who was a little girl then.” “What kind of folks are they?” “What kind? Really! Why, they're very charming people--” “So Jeff seems to think. Any call to show them any particular attention?” “I don't know if I quite understand--” “Why, it's just this. Jeff, here, wants to make a picnic for them, or something, and I can't see the sense of it. You remember what happened at that other picnic, with that Mrs. Marven”--Jeff tapped the floor with his stick impatiently, and Westover felt sorry for him--“and I don't want it to happen again, and I've told Jeff so. I presume he thinks it 'll set him right with them, if they're thinkin' demeaning of him because he came over second-cabin on their ship.” Jeff set his teeth and compressed his lips to bear as best he could, the give-away which his mother could not appreciate in its importance to him: “They're not the kind of people to take such a thing shabbily,” said Westover. “They didn't happen to mention it, but Mrs. Vostrand must have got used to seeing young fellows in straits of all kinds during her life abroad. I know that I sometimes made the cup of tea and biscuit she used to give me in Florence do duty for a dinner, and I believe she knew it.” Jeff looked up at Westover with a grateful, sidelong glance. His mother said: “Well, then, that's all right, and Jeff needn't do anything for them on that account. And I've made up my mind about one thing: whatever the hotel does has got to be done for the whole hotel. It can't pick and choose amongst the guests.” Westover liked so little the part of old family friend which he seemed, whether he liked it or not, to bear with the Durgins, that he would gladly have got away now, but Mrs. Durgin detained him with a direct appeal. “Don't you think so, Mr. Westover?”