“It’s pretty late to call them rumours--they were devilish close to facts when we left town this morning,” Mr. Grisben was saying, with an unexpected incisiveness of tone. Mr. Lavington laid down his spoon and smiled interrogatively. “Oh, facts--what _are_ facts? Just the way a thing happens to look at a given minute....” “You haven’t heard anything from town?” Mr. Grisben persisted. “Not a syllable. So you see.... Balch, a little more of that _petite marmite_. Mr. Faxon... between Frank and Mr. Grisben, please.” The dinner progressed through a series of complicated courses, ceremoniously dispensed by a prelatical butler attended by three tall footmen, and it was evident that Mr. Lavington took a certain satisfaction in the pageant. That, Faxon reflected, was probably the joint in his armour--that and the flowers. He had changed the subject--not abruptly but firmly--when the young men entered, but Faxon perceived that it still possessed the thoughts of the two elderly visitors, and Mr. Balch presently observed, in a voice that seemed to come from the last survivor down a mine-shaft: “If it _does_ come, it will be the biggest crash since ‘93.” Mr. Lavington looked bored but polite. “Wall Street can stand crashes better than it could then. It’s got a robuster constitution.” “Yes; but--” “Speaking of constitutions,” Mr. Grisben intervened: “Frank, are you taking care of yourself?” A flush rose to young Rainer’s cheeks. “Why, of course! Isn’t that what I’m here for?” “You’re here about three days in the month, aren’t you? And the rest of the time it’s crowded restaurants and hot ballrooms in town. I thought you were to be shipped off to New Mexico?” “Oh, I’ve got a new man who says that’s rot.” “Well, you don’t look as if your new man were right,” said Mr. Grisben bluntly. Faxon saw the lad’s colour fade, and the rings of shadow deepen under his gay eyes. At the same moment his uncle turned to him with a renewed intensity of attention. There was such solicitude in Mr. Lavington’s gaze that it seemed almost to fling a shield between his nephew and Mr. Grisben’s tactless scrutiny. “We think Frank’s a good deal better,” he began; “this new doctor--” The butler, coming up, bent to whisper a word in his ear, and the communication caused a sudden change in Mr. Lavington’s expression. His face was naturally so colourless that it seemed not so much to pale as to fade, to dwindle and recede into something blurred and blotted-out. He half rose, sat down again and sent a rigid smile about the table. “Will you excuse me? The telephone. Peters, go on with the dinner.” With small precise steps he walked out of the door which one of the footmen had thrown open. A momentary silence fell on the group; then Mr. Grisben once more addressed himself to Rainer. “You ought to have gone, my boy; you ought to have gone.” The anxious look returned to the youth’s eyes. “My uncle doesn’t think so, really.”