“Good-night, boy! See you to-morrow,” exclaimed Fenton hurriedly. Then he walked onward alone. “I went there,” he was saying to himself, “to get a line on the youngster’s affair. But the cold, hard fact is that I forgot all about him.”... At that same moment Percy-Bartlett and Buchanan Budd were smoking their good-night cigars together at the club. “It is really too bad,” Budd was saying, “that the newspapers have been able to print so much scandal about our set. But I suppose there is no way to prevent it.” “But there is a way,” returned Percy-Bartlett almost sternly. “What we need in the inner circle is more heroism and less heroics. If _noblesse oblige_ means anything at all in these days, it demands of those who live up to its behests that they be self-contained, not hysterical. There is no necessity for a domestic tragedy getting into print if the man or woman who is wronged is fundamentally worthy of a place in the most select coterie on earth.” “You would rather wink at crime than have the public gossip about you, then?” asked Budd. “I would--a thousand times!” answered Percy-Bartlett, throwing away his cigar and saying “good-night” cheerily. CHAPTER X. “I am not in the mood for listening to the confessions of a frivolous boy,” remarked John Fenton, looking up from his desk in the city room of the _Trumpet_ at Richard Stoughton on the afternoon following Mrs. Percy-Bartlett’s musicale. “Don’t be cross with me, John,” implored Richard gently; “I have no intention of worrying you with my peccadilloes. But I want you to look in on me for an hour after dinner. I really have a very important matter I want to talk to you about. You aren’t on duty to-night, are you?” “No,” answered Fenton, with apparent reluctance. Then he hesitated a moment, and finally said,-- “Very well, Richard. I’ll do you the great honor of calling on you about half after seven. But I give you fair warning, if you begin to bore me, I shall fly at once.” “It’s a bargain!” exclaimed the youth, as he turned away.