"There was, too. Don't you suppose I know? But I tried to do all right. I tried to make you p-proud of me," she choked. "I know I didn't talk much at first. I was scared and stupid, he was so fine and grand. And I didn't know a thing about all that Egyptian stuff you was talking about. Then I thought how 'shamed you'd be of me, and I just made up my mind I _would_ talk and show him it wasn't a--a little fool that you'd married; and I s'posed I was doing what you wanted me to. But I see now I wasn't. I wasn't fine enough for your grand friend. I ain't never fine enough for 'em. But I don't care. I hate 'em all--every one of 'em! I'd rather have Mrs. Jones twice over. _She_ isn't ashamed of me. I thought I was p-pleasing you; and now--now--" Her words were lost in a storm of sobs. There was but one thing to be done, of course; and Burke did it. He took her in his arms and soothed and petted and praised her. What he said he did not know--nor care, for that matter, so long as it served ever so slightly to dam the flood of Helen's tears. That, for the moment, was the only thing worth living for. The storm passed at last, as storms must; but it was still a teary little wife that received her husband's good-night kiss some time later. Burke did not go to sleep very readily that night. In his mind he was going over his prospective meeting with his friend Gleason the next day. What would Gleason say? How would he act? What would he himself say? What _could_ he say? He could not very well apologize for-- Even to himself Burke would not finish the sentence. Apologize? Indeed, no! As if there were anything, anyway, to apologize for! He would meet Gleason exactly as usual. He would carry his head high. There should be about him no air of apology or appeal. By his every act and word he would show that he was not in need of sympathy, and that he should resent comment. He might even ask Gleason to dinner. He believed he _would_ ask him to dinner. In no other way, certainly, could he so convincingly show how--er--proud he was of his wife. Burke went to sleep then. It had been arranged that the two men should meet at noon for luncheon; and promptly on time Burke appeared at the hotel. His chin was indeed high, and for the first two minutes he was painfully guarded and self-conscious in his bearing. But under the unstudied naturalness of the doctor's manner, he speedily became his normal self; and in five minutes the two were conversing with their old ease and enthusiasm. The doctor had with him an Egyptian scarab with a rarely interesting inscription, a new acquisition; also a tiny Babylonian tablet of great value. In both of them Burke was much interested. In the wake then of a five-thousand-year-old stylus, it is not strange that he forgot present problems.