There was no telling what might happen; it was never safe to leave town, and having spent two years abroad in his young manhood, Wingfield abstained from further foreign travel. One must pick up gossip when it is fresh. Nothing, he said, is so discouraging as to miss the prologue; and so he spent most of his time at home. “But for the invention of sleeping-cars, and the fact of our being only one night from New York we should be the most moral city in the world,” he averred. Wingfield was a University of Pennsylvania man, and spoke in bitter contumeliousness of Yale and Harvard, which are, as all Pennsylvania men are able to demonstrate, grossly inferior institutions. Princeton, to all such, is only a blot on the Mosquito Strip and the seat of ignorance. His mother was a Philadelphian, and Dick’s two aunts were still residents of that city, where, through much careful instruction on their part, he knew Chestnut Street’s meridional importance and the sacred names one must whisper and those one must not utter at all. His income was derived from coke ovens situated in three districts, and these it pleased his humour to call Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Wingfield walked to Mrs. Blair’s gate with Wayne talking of pictures and music. He was a diligent collector of anecdotes of the brief sort that end with abrupt and unforeseen climaxes, and he recounted a number for Wayne’s amusement. He carefully avoided any reference to Colonel Craighill’s marriage, though he knew Wayne better than anyone else and might have spoken his mind without offense. Wayne had appeared unusually dull and depressed, a mood that frequently followed a debauch, and Wingfield, familiar with his latest escapade, wished to lift his friend’s spirits if he could. At the Blairs’ gate he declined Wayne’s invitation to enter; but before they parted he made a point of suggesting that they have luncheon together the next day. He was wiser and kinder than most people gave him credit for being, and here, it had occurred to him, he might do a little good. Wayne entered his sister’s house with a latch-key which it had been her own idea that he should carry. Mrs. Blair came out of the reception room while he was hanging up his hat and coat and asked him to go into the parlour for a few minutes. “I have a caller--a matter of business--I’ll be with you in a minute, Wayne. Find something to read, won’t you?”