She laughed at that; and he did too; and she gulped her glass of water empty and refused more. "Ricky," she began abruptly, "you've been up to that Witch-Hollow place of Molly's?" "Yes." "Well, what the devil is going on there?" "Aviation," he said blandly. "What else? Don't evade an answer! I can't get anything out of that little idiot, Molly; I can't worm anything out of Sir Charles; I can't learn anything from Strelsa Leeds; and as for Langly he won't even answer my letters. "Now I want to know what is going on there? I've been as short with Strelsa as I dare be--she's got to be led with sugar. I've almost ordered her to come to me at Newport--but she doesn't come." "She's resting," said Quarren coolly. "Hasn't she had time to rest in that dingy, dead-and-alive place? And what keeps Langly there? He has nothing to look at except a few brood-mares. Do you suppose he has the bad taste to hang around waiting for Chester Ledwith to get out and Mary Ledwith to return? Or is it something else that glues him there--with the _Yulan_ in the North River?" Quarren shrugged his lack of interest in the subject. "If I thought," muttered the old lady--"if I imagined for one moment that Langly was daring to try any of his low, cold-blooded tricks on Strelsa Leeds, I'd go up there myself--I'd take the next train and tell that girl plainly what kind of a citizen my charming nephew really is!" Quarren was silent. "Why the dickens don't you say something?" she demanded. "I want to know whether I ought to go up there or not. Have you ever observed--have you ever suspected that there might be anything between Langly and Strelsa Leeds?--any tacit understanding--any interest on her part in him?... Why don't you answer me?" "You know," he said, "that it's none of your business what I believe." "Am I to take that impudence literally?" "Exactly as I said it. You asked improper questions; I am obliged to remind you that you cannot expect me to answer them." "Why can't you speak of Langly?" "Because what concerns him does not concern me." "I thought you were in love with Strelsa," she said bluntly. "If I were, do you imagine I'd discuss it with you?" "I'll tell you what!" she shouted, purple with rage, "you might do a damn sight worse! I'd--I'd rather see her your wife than his!--and God knows _what_ he wants of her at that--as Mary Ledwith has first call or the world will turn Langly out of doors!" Quarren, slightly paler, looked at her in silence. "I tell you the world will spit in his face," she said between her teeth, "if he doesn't make good with Mary Ledwith after what he's done to her and her husband." "He has too much money," said Quarren. "Besides there's an ordinance against it." "You watch and see! Some things are _too_ rotten to be endured----" "What? I haven't noticed any either abroad or here. Anyway it doesn't concern me." "Don't you care for that girl?" "We are friends."