“Heavens! I hope I haven’t put my foot into it!” Nell pursed up her lips, and gave her attention to her _hors d’œuvre_. “I thought you surely knew! Isn’t he a particular friend of yours?” “Know _what_?” he demanded. There was a grimness in the boy’s tone that worried the girl. “What’s the excitement?” she answered crossly. “Gracious, you don’t have to shout at me like that. There isn’t anything dreadful to know, only that Elinor and Templeton are going about together a great deal, and that she’s simply mad about him.” “I hadn’t even an idea that they were seeing each other until this evening,” he replied, and then he told her about the argument he had had with Elinor just before she went out. “What’s the matter with the little fool?” Nell demanded angrily. “Wouldn’t you think if she were going to use me as an excuse to get out, she’d at least have the decency to tell me about it. Supposing your mother should take a notion to call up my house—she’d be bound to find out.” “Mother will never think of calling your house,” he assured her. “She’ll be in bed by nine o’clock. There isn’t any reason why she should suspect Elinor of not dining with you, is there?” “No—none that I know of—but just the same you never can tell what might happen. I’ll warn Elinor to-morrow never to use my name again unless she is willing to take me into her confidence in advance so that I can at least be prepared to meet an emergency, should it arrive.” “That won’t be necessary, Nell,” Howard said quickly. “I’ll see that Elinor doesn’t meet him after to-night!” The tight line of his lips as he made his affirmation showed that Howard Benton meant what he said. At the theater later, his mind was miles away. Somehow, he couldn’t rid his thoughts of Elinor. As soon as he had taken Nell home, he ordered the taxi to return to town and take him to the club. He would probably find his father there, and he would tell him without delay about these clandestine meetings. But Howard Benton did not find his father at his club. He found friends, though, and while he was enjoying his drinks with them could he have seen and heard his father at that hour, he would have had more to disturb him over cataclysms imminent in his own family than he was disturbed by his sister’s friendship for the Broadway prodigal Druid. For him, Hugh Benton had returned home early. “Griggs,” he ordered, as the man took his hat and stick, “will you go to Mrs. Benton’s room and ask her please to come to me in the library?”