“I know the way round at the Institute and I might be of service to her,” he said carelessly, but she knew that he was deeply interested--women always interested him--and she saw no way at the moment of putting him off. “I can’t, Wayne.” “I should like to know why not?” and he laughed as he balanced his hat by its brim in his hands. She usually yielded readily to any of his requests and he was surprised that she parleyed now. “I can’t; I mustn’t; and please, Wayne, don’t make any effort to find out who she is. I beg you not to; I don’t want you to know her,” she ended, with pleading in her voice and eyes. His face clouded and he turned to the door and opened it. Then he flung round upon her roughly: “My God, Fanny; have I sunk as low as that!” She stepped into the vestibule and watched him striding through the shrubbery toward the gate. She pressed her face to the glass of the vestibule doors, shielding her eyes from the overhead light with her hands as she looked after him. She always made a point of sending him away happy when she could; and now he had left her in anger. She still watched him after he had left the grounds and passed into the street, walking slower than was his wont, and with his head bowed. The curious mood in which he was accepting his father’s marriage still distressed her; and his declaration that he had given up drink had carried no real conviction, now that she pondered his words and manner. She waited until an opening through the trees gave her a last glimpse of him across the hedge under the electric light at the corner, then with a deep sigh she turned into the house. When, a little later, he called her on the telephone and begged her not to mind anything he had said on leaving--his usual way of making peace after their occasional tiffs--she was only half relieved. CHAPTER VIII THE COMING OF MRS. CRAIGHILL “My promptness deserves a better cause!” exclaimed Mrs. Blair as she stepped from her motor at the entrance to the railway station, where Wayne in his father’s car had arrived but a moment earlier. Mrs. Blair had brought down her two children, and these in their smart fall coats were still protesting against the haste with which they had been snatched from their beds and dressed in their Sunday clothes; but their faces brightened at the sight of their uncle, upon whom they fell clamorously with a demand to be taken into the train sheds to see the locomotives. Wayne was more amiable than his sister had seen him since their father gave the first warning of his marriage. He chaffed the children and promised to take them to a football game the next Saturday if they would let him off as to the engines; and when they were appeased he held up for his sister’s inspection the morning papers, with their first-page account of the marriage in New York the preceding day.