“This is unkind, Richard,” said Fenton, with more emotion in his voice than his friend had ever heard it express. “I have neither the inclination nor the time at present to explain my present position.” “Why not the time, John?” asked Richard, smiling mischievously. “Because, my boy,” and Fenton spoke like a man driven to the wall, “I’m going up-town to call on Miss Van Vleck.” Richard laughed outright. “No wonder,” he cried, “that you can’t explain your present position.” Richard found himself alone in the room, and, lighting a fresh cigar, reseated himself before the fire. “It was heroic treatment,” he mused, “but it’s the only course to pursue with such a man as John Fenton.” Then he fell to thinking of Mrs. Percy-Bartlett, and the hours flew by. CHAPTER XI. Buchanan Budd had been doing a good deal of deep thinking of late--proof positive that the times were out of joint. Budd, of course, was obliged to do more or less thinking in order to be always correctly dressed, but it was only a great crisis that could compel him to ponder really weighty problems for any length of time. When a subterranean disturbance shakes a city it is the most clumsily constructed houses that go down first. In like manner, when the most select circle of society is in trouble, it is the man who has no very good claim to recognition in that circle who first feels the effects of the internal agitation. As Buchanan Budd listened to the current gossip at his clubs, and read in the newspapers impudent criticisms on the doings of the people with whom he associated, he came reluctantly, but firmly, to the conclusion that it behooved him to take some step that would strengthen his position as a recognized member of the most exclusive social clique in the country--perhaps in the world. It did not take him long to decide that the only fitting strategical move on his part lay along the line of matrimony. Not that he came to this conviction willingly. He enjoyed life as a bachelor, and he felt that in taking to himself a wife he would be making a most dangerous experiment. He could not blind himself to the fact that the unpleasant publicity at that time being thrust upon certain members of the inner circle had had its origin in unfortunate marriages. Nevertheless, he realized that society expected of him, at some time or other, a personal sacrifice of his liberty on the altar of matrimony; and the present crisis seemed to be an appropriate moment for propitiating the powers controlling the inner circle by taking to himself a wife who would render him safe for the future in any sifting process in which society might indulge.