O'Hara drank pensively: "I see that Langly Sprowl is messin' about, too. Mrs. Ledwith had better hurry up out there in Reno--or wherever she's gettin' her divorce. I saw Chet Ledwith ridin' in the Park. Dankmere was with him. Funny he doesn't seem to lose any caste by sellin' his wife to Sprowl." "The whole thing is a filthy mess," growled Westguard; "let it alone." "Why don't you make a novel about it?" inquired O'Hara. "Because, you dub! I don't use real episodes or living people!" roared Westguard; "newspapers and a few chumps to the contrary!" "So!--so-o!" said O'Hara, soothingly--"whoa--steady, boy!" And he pretended to rub down Westguard, hissing the while as do grooms when currying. "Anybody who tells the truth about social conditions in any section of human society is always regarded as a liar," said Westguard. "Not that I have any desire to do it, but if I _should_ ever write a novel dealing with social conditions in any fashionable set, I'd be disbelieved." "You would be if you devoted your attention to fashionable scandals only," said Quarren. "Why? Aren't there plenty of scandalous----" "Plenty. But no more than in any other set or coterie; not as many as there are among more ignorant people. Virtue far outbalances vice among us: a novel, properly proportioned, ought to show that. If it doesn't, it's misleading." "Supposing," said Westguard, "that I were indecent enough to show up my aunt in fiction. Nobody would believe her possible." "I sometimes doubt her even now," observed O'Hara, grinning. Quarren said: "Count up the unpleasant characters in your own social vicinity, Karl--just to prove to yourself that there are really very few." "There is Langly--and my aunt--and the Lester Calderas--and the Ledwiths----" "Go on!" Westguard laughed: "I guess that ends the list," he said. "It does. Also I dispute the list," said Quarren. "Cyrille Caldera is a pippin," remarked O'Hara, sentimentally. "What about Mary Ledwith? Is anybody here inclined to sit in judgment?" "I," said Westguard grimly. "Why?" "Divorce is a dirty business." "Oh. You'd rather she put up with Chester?--the sort of man who was weak enough to let her go?" "Yes!" "Get out, you old Roundhead!" said Quarren, laughing. He rose, laid his hand lightly on Westguard's shoulder in passing, and went upstairs to his room, where he wrote a long letter to Strelsa; and then destroyed it. Then he lay down, covering his boyish head with his arms. When Lacy came in he saw him lying on the bed, and thought he was asleep. CHAPTER V Toward the end of March Strelsa, with the Wycherlys, returned to New York, dead tired. She had been flattered, run after, courted from Palm Beach to Havana; the perpetual social activity, the unbroken fever of change and excitement had already made firmer the soft lineaments of the girl's features, had slightly altered the expression of the mouth.