Shipman had had his mind upon this girl and her problem ever since the club dance. So Sard's little world had already "made her ashamed." It had, with its tawdry assumption, already begun to pass judgment upon her. These were the things that sent young people running amuck. What chance was there in a community like this for the fine idealisms of youth? Shipman thought. How much more stringent and vindictive are the unwritten laws of so-called society against the bold spirit that seeks to transcend it than the concise preventive inhibitions of the state statute. Watts had heard rumors of the Tawny Troop canard and of the general village interpretation of Colter's presence in this girl's vicinity. How commonplace, how vulgar it was; how it could hurt her! The seasoned man winced at the thought of that pure spirit smirched with the stupid and bestial mouthings of the ordinary community. He shrank to think of his Winged Victory before the essential squalidness of the minds with which she was surrounded. But he asked no questions, he only looked thoughtfully into the resolute fresh eyes, and there he seemed to read a page newly turned in Sard's heart. This girl, he saw, was slowly growing conscious about the man, Colter. Jove, it was a pity! But with the buzzings of the country community and her father's cold isolation from the problem there could be only one result: she would grow more and more sure of this one personality whose cause she had espoused. That was the way her kind met what it had to meet. Watts thought of what things Sard might have to meet. His dark eyes tried to read hers. "Courage!" they said to her, and again, "Courage!" "The Minga Group deserted, after all," the lawyer teased. "A little inharmony there, I'm afraid." Then, as he saw two young figures morosely eating sandwiches under the shade of an elm, he went forward. "Well, worshipful clients----" The lawyer was anxious to get Minga past all shyness and some painful memories. There was nothing in his face but the look of one who greets an old comrade. "How am I to spend my ill-gotten gains?" The man asked it with purposeful lightness. "There's about three hundred dollars that you contributed; shall we give it to Dora?" The two faces darkened. Minga threw away her sandwich. She turned and faced him, impudently looking him up and down. Her dark blue eyes glittered with a cold dislike that almost startled the man. He regarded her with puzzled concern, amazed at the variability of this little creature whom he had already seen under so many different phases of emotion. Now, Watts thought, Minga looked really dangerous; something was added to her usual rebelliousness. "Oh," said the girl flippantly, "let's do something for Dora by all means, buy her a grand piano." He did not answer. She went on bitterly: "That will make _you_ more comfortable anyway." "I've disappointed you?" the man questioned gently. Then trying again for lightness, "I was not worthy of my hire."