Prochnow was in a deplorable state and needed all the support Little O'Grady could give him. He had not seen Preciosa for several days. He had called at the house once or twice--that vast florid pile, which had always looked lackadaisical rather than cruel; but it had refused to admit him. Euphrosyne had repulsed him with the utmost contumely; even old Jeremiah (who may not have meant to be harsh, but who seemed to be acting under superior orders) told him he must not appear there again. Nothing came to console him except three or four tear-stained little scrawls from Preciosa herself. In these she vowed in simple and slightly varying phrases to be faithful; nobody should come between them, nobody should make her untrue, nobody should prevent her from keeping her promise, nobody should take her away from him, and the like. "What does it mean, Terence?" asked Prochnow, vastly perturbed by these blind reiterations. Little O'Grady pondered. "Her folks are against us, that's all," he replied. "They're trying to marry her to somebody else," he told himself. "Who can it be?" Then, aloud and cheerfully: "If you can't see her at one house, why, just see her at another. Come along with you." They found the town moving on Eudoxia Pence _en masse_, with several policemen in front to keep order. On the front steps they grazed elbows with the Joyces and the Gowans; and with these and other members of the general public they swept on, joining the vast throng of those who were so eager to press the great lady's Smyrna rugs with their own feet and fumble her silk hangings with their own fingers and rap her Japanese jars with their own knuckles and smell her new paintings with their own noses and see Mrs. Palmer Pence herself with their own eyes. "Gee! ain't it swell!" whispered Little O'Grady, who could make swans out of geese or geese out of swans with equal facility.