"Will you please prove equal to the situation?" she said under her breath, but with a charming smile. "Do you know you are scowling? These people here are ready to laugh; and I'd much prefer that they tear us to rags on suspicion of our over-friendliness." "Who is that fool woman who is monopolising your partner?" "Rosamund Fane; she's doing it on purpose. You must try to smile now and then." "My face is stiff with grinning," he said, "but I'll do what I can for you--" "Please include yourself, too." "Oh, I can stand their opinions," he said; "I only meet the yellow sort occasionally; I don't herd with them." "I do, thank you." "How do you like them? What is your opinion of the yellow set? Here they sit all about you--the Phoenix Mottlys, Mrs. Delmour-Carnes yonder, the Draymores, the Orchils, the Vendenning lady, the Lawns of Westlawn--" he paused, then deliberately--"and the 'Jack' Ruthvens. I forgot, Alixe, that you are now perfectly equipped to carry aloft the golden hod." "Go on," she said, drawing a deep breath, but the fixed smile never altered. "No," he said; "I can't talk. I thought I could, but I can't. Take that boy away from Mrs. Fane as soon as you can." "I can't yet. You must go on. I ask your aid to carry this thing through. I--I am afraid of their ridicule. Could you try to help me a little?" "If you put it that way, of course." And, after a silence, "What am I to say? What in God's name shall I say to you, Alixe?" "Anything bitter--as long as you control your voice and features. Try to smile at me when you speak, Philip." "All right. I have no reason to be bitter, anyway," he said; "and every reason to be otherwise." "That is not true. You tell me that I have ruined your career in the army. I did not know I was doing it. Can you believe me?" And, as he made no response: "I did not dream you would have to resign. Do you believe me?" "There is no choice," he said coldly. "Drop the subject!" "That is brutal. I never thought--" She forced a smile and drew her glass toward her. The straw-tinted wine slopped over and frothed on the white skin of her arm. "Well," she breathed, "this ghastly dinner is nearly ended." He nodded pleasantly. "And--Phil?"--a bit tremulous. "What?" "Was it all my fault? I mean in the beginning? I've wanted to ask you that--to know your view of it. Was it?" "No. It was mine, most of it." "Not all--not half! We did not know how; that is the wretched explanation of it all." "And we could never have learned; that's the rest of the answer. But the fault is not there." "I know; 'better to bear the ills we have.'" "Yes; more respectable to bear them. Let us drop this in decency's name, Alixe!" After a silence, she began: "One more thing--I must know it; and I am going to ask you--if I may. Shall I?" He smiled cordially, and she laughed as though confiding a delightful bit of news to him: "Do you regard me as sufficiently important to dislike me?" "I do not--dislike you."