A week had passed since Saxton's appointment to the receivership and Wheaton went to and from his work with many misgivings. Several of Wheaton's friends had confided to him their belief that he ought to have been appointed receiver instead of Saxton, and there was little that he could say to this, except that he had no time for it. He had become nervous and distraught, and was irritable under the jesting of his associates at The Bachelors'. There was a good deal of joking at their table for several days after Saxton's appointment over Margrave's discomfiture, to which Wheaton contributed little. He felt decidedly ill at ease under it. Thompson, the cashier, had come home, and Wheaton found his presence irksome. He had seen Margrave several times at the club since their last interview at the bank and Margrave had nodded distantly, as if he hardly remembered Wheaton. Wheaton assumed that sooner or later Margrave would offer to pay him for his shares of Traction stock. But while the loss of his own certificate, under all the circumstances, did not trouble him, Margrave's appropriation of Evelyn Porter's shares was an unpleasant fact that haunted all his waking hours. One evening, a week after the receivership incident, he resolved to go to Margrave and demand, at any hazard, the return of Evelyn's certificate. The idea seized firm hold upon him, and he set out at once for Margrave's house. He inquired for Margrave at the door, and the maid asked him to go into the library. They were entertaining at dinner, she told him, and he said he would wait. He walked nervously up and down in the well-appointed library, where Warry Raridan's purchases looked out at him from the solid mahogany bookcases. He heard the hum of voices faintly from the dining-room. He picked up a magazine and tried to read, but the printed pages did not hold his eyes. He did not know how Margrave would treat him, and he would have escaped from the house if he had dared. Margrave came in presently, fat and ugly in his evening clothes. He welcomed Wheaton noisily and introduced him to his guests, two directors of the Transcontinental and their wives, who were passing through town on their way to California.