"Pooh!" Woodside scoffed. "They are no different from other people, except that they think they're more exclusive." "And think it so successfully that every one who is outside wants inside--yourself among them, my friend, yourself among them." "I don't give a damn for them!" Woodside declared. "Maybe you don't--but Mrs. Woodside does--and you do too, if you'd be honest. Everyone does, Josh, everyone does. It's a humanly universal failing. Let some set themselves up as particularly exclusive and the rest are wild to get in with them." "Hell!" muttered Woodside. The two men smoked a while in silence--then Woodside spoke. "It's mighty queer," he said, "and altogether lucky for you." Porshinger raised his eyes and waited inquiringly. "Altogether lucky!" the other repeated. "You back out of a 'happen in' yesterday, and receive a 'come-in' to-day. Can you explain it?" "I can't explain it--unless it is the result of my walk with Mrs. Lorraine, yesterday morning. However, I'm frank to say that I didn't play a particularly heroic part in the bull episode; so unless I made an impression otherwise I reckon that isn't it." "Has Miss Chamberlain been especially friendly before this?" Woodside asked. "Not at all." "How about the others at Criss-Cross?" Porshinger shook his head. "Might it be old Chamberlain?" "Possibly--but I think not. He never allows business to dictate his friends, I understand." "Good thing when you can afford it!--Well, there must be _some_ reason for asking you." "A particularly sage observation. Button! button! who has the button?" "Butt in! butt in! you're the butt in!" amended Woodside. "Get out!" laughed Porshinger, flinging a magazine at him. "I haven't an idea what is the reason, but I'm perfectly sure it won't be declared this trip, and possibly never. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, Josh." "Better be sure it is a gift horse," was the answer. "However, you for it, my friend--it's your funeral, not mine." "I'm going to it a pretty live corpse." "You'll need to be very much alive, I take it. I should be afraid of that gang. They're so damn dignified and unobtrusive in their self-assurance. You can't tell what they are playing for nor how. As I said before, you're a wonder for business but you're in the novice class in this woman's game. You have my best wishes, my friend--also my prayers. You don't care for the prayers? Oh, very well." At the same hour on the piazza of Criss-Cross, Gladys Chamberlain confided to her guests that Porshinger was coming to them at five o'clock. "Any objections?" she inquired, looking at Devereux. "Plenty of them!" he answered; "but I'll save them for an exclusively masculine audience." "How about you, Steuart?" she asked. "Same here!" replied Cameron. She turned to Burgoyne. "And you?" "Ditto!" said he. "Really I am overcome by such gratifying unanimity!" she laughed. "You too, Montague, I suppose?"