“What has become of that nice young Mr. Ryerson, Everett?” asked Mrs. Kingsford. “We haven’t seen him since—why, not since before Christmas, have we, Betty?”

“No, mother,” answered Betty calmly.

“Phillip Ryerson has taken the veil,” replied Everett gravely.

“Taken the veil!” echoed his mother. “What do you mean? Whose veil, Everett?”

“I mean he has withdrawn from the world of society and is hiding himself in the monastic seclusion of Thayer Hall. Really, I don’t quite know what’s up with Phil, but he’s frightfully down on his luck for some old reason, and I never see him more than once in a coon’s age. I think, though, that his folks have lost their money, or something like that has happened. He left our table right after the holidays and went to eating at Randall. And he gave up a couple of very jolly rooms he had on Mount Auburn Street and went to a horrible cheap dive down near[333] the river. Since then, however, he’s gone in with a fellow named Baker who has a joint in Thayer. I’ve tried to get him to come here to dinner with me a couple of times, but he seems soured on polite society. I daresay Betty has thrown him over.”

“Who’s that you’re speaking of?” asked Mr. Kingsford, looking up from his Transcript. “That young Ryerson?”

“Yes, sir,” Everett replied.

“Well, if his people have lost their money I guess he thinks society is too expensive for him. I’m glad he’s got so much sense. I always thought he seemed level-headed. I wish you were as much so, sir.” Everett grinned.

“But,” continued Mr. Kingsford, glancing up and down the market columns, “it won’t do for him to think we are snobbish. And besides, I won’t have him breaking Betty’s heart. You tell him from me that I want him to come in to dinner next week.”

“You’re very nice, papa,” said Betty sweetly, “but my heart’s not nearly so fragile as you seem to think.”

“Glad to hear it; must be like your mother’s. She broke mine fifty times before she finally consented[334] to marry me, and I don’t believe she ever sustained a fracture herself.”

“Poor old dad,” murmured Betty.

“Betty, you’re getting into a most annoying habit of referring to me as aged,” said Mr. Kingsford, scowling blackly. “I want you to understand, miss, that I am only six years older than your mother and she’s the youngest woman in Boston.”

Mrs. Kingsford smiled and blushed, as she always did at her husband’s compliments, and arose in response to the appearance at the library door of the maid with wraps.

“Come, Betty, the carriage is here,” she said. Everett accompanied them downstairs and saw them into the brougham. When he returned to the library he found his father had thrown aside the paper and was thoughtfully watching the smoke curl up from the tip of his cigar.

“Think that’s right about young Ryerson, do you, Everett?”

“About his folks losing money? Yes, sir; I gathered as much from what he has told me.”

“Sorry to hear it. He seems a fine sort of a boy. Do you like him?”

“Yes, sir, I like Phil,” answered Everett decisively.

[335]

“All right. Why is it you see so little of him then?”

“Well, we don’t meet very often, sir, and he seems rather stand-offish; doesn’t appear to want to chum.”

“Of course he doesn’t. He’s a Southerner. I’ve met a good many of them. They’re as proud as turkey cocks. If his people have lost their money, why, he has got it into his head, I daresay, that you don’t care to know him. Now don’t let him think that, Everett. If there’s anything on God’s green earth I hate it’s that sort of thing. Don’t be a money-snob, my boy.”

“I don’t think I am, sir. It hadn’t occurred to me that Phil could imagine anything of the sort.”

“I don’t say that you are, Everett; but don’t let it look that way. Now you look him up when you go back Monday and don’t let him put you off; give him to understand that it doesn’t make a continental bit of difference to you whether there’s been an auction at the old homestead or not. Get him in here to dinner with you. If he’s down on his luck, cheer him up. Take him into Parker’s some evening and put some cocktails where they’ll do the most good; you may charge it to me.”

“All right, sir. But I don’t believe he’d go to[336] dinner, sir; he’s awfully shy on letting you do things for him.”

“Is, eh? A regular dyed-in-the-wool Southerner, I guess. Well, you do the best you can, Everett. There have been four generations of Kingsfords at Harvard so far, and they’ve all acted like gentlemen. You look sharp, sir, and see that the rule isn’t broken. I’ll forgive you anything and pay your bills like a little tin bank, just so long as you don’t forget what your last name is. If you ever do that, look out for squalls, my son!”

The result of this conversation, which took place the first week in February, was that Everett became a frequent visitor at the corner room in Thayer. Phillip begged off from Everett’s invitation to dinner, not because, now that he had discovered that he was still wanted, he did not wish to go, but because he had sold his very expensive dress suit for half what he had paid for it, and it did not occur to him to borrow one. He didn’t explain this to Everett, however, but pleaded study, an excuse which his friend accepted politely but did not believe in. Perhaps Everett suspected the true reason, for a few days later he asked Phillip to come to his rooms on a certain Thursday afternoon.

[337]

“My mother and Betty and Miss Wayland are coming out to tea,” he explained, “and going to vespers afterward. I’ll let you off on vespers if you insist, but I would like you to help me hand the sandwiches around. Porter is trying for the nine and has got to be in the cage that afternoon with the rest of the animals.” (Porter was Everett’s roommate.) “Say you’ll come, like a good chap.”

“I’ll be mighty glad to,” answered Phillip. “Only—you don’t reckon your—mother thinks I’m impolite for not accepting that invitation to dinner?”

“Not a bit. I explained that you were awfully busy grinding. She’s been holding you up to me ever since as a model of studiousness. If I don’t think to speak of it again, be there about three, will you?”

That Thursday was almost a week distant. The intervening days went slower than any Phillip had ever known. He had his best suit of clothes pressed and bought a new tie. The latter was broad and black, with half-moons of purple and green. Chester pretended great concern.

“Tell me the truth, Phil,” he begged. “You’re going to get married, aren’t you? You’re not? Then you’re asked to dinner with Prexy. I knew[338] it was something momentous—out of the ordinary! Couldn’t you get me in somehow? My table manners, really, aren’t half bad, if we don’t have soup. I always spill my soup. Anyhow, I could say I didn’t care for soup; lots of folks don’t, you know. Of course, I haven’t any tie that comes anywhere near touching that one; but I’ve got a Punjaub thing, all red and yellow and green, that’s very, very effective by gaslight. You will take me, won’t you, Phil?”

Meanwhile something occurred that disturbed Phillip’s self-satisfaction. Crossing the Yard one morning, he encountered David lounging along, swinging a note-book and whistling very much out of tune. When he saw Phillip he hailed him and, crossing the grass with gigantic strides and leaps, shook hands.

“Haven’t seen you for a good while, Phil,” he said.

“No; I—I’ve been rather busy since I got back,” Phillip answered confusedly.

“Have you, boy? Look here, Phil, it’s none of my business—in a way—but I want to tell you that you’re making a big mistake. John has told me, you know. Now, whatever it is you’ve got against him, I’ll bet you dollars to pants buttons there’s nothing[339] in it. He swears he doesn’t know what it is, and John doesn’t lie, Phil. He doesn’t know I’m saying this; he’d try to break my neck if he found it out. But you’ve hurt him quite a bit. If you’re in the right of it—why, there’s nothing more to be said. But if you’re making a mistake I think you’d better own up.”

“I don’t think there’s any mistake,” Phillip answered gravely.

“Think be damned! You’ve got to know, Phil! If you’re in the wrong it’s your duty, my boy, to say so, and if he’s in the wrong it’s equally your duty to tell him where. Now you think it over, will you? And, look here, Phil, supposing you come around some Sunday night—to-morrow, for instance—just to see me? You’ve got nothing against me, have you? Well, you come and call on me, then; it’s none of John’s business if you do, you know. Anyhow, think it over well, will you?”

Phillip could do no less than promise.

But what David had said impressed him. He had hitherto believed himself altogether in the right. Now he began to wonder whether, after all, he did not owe it to John to explain what he was charged with. Not that there could be any mistake. He[340] had spoken with Guy Bassett and Bassett had readily acknowledged that John had seen him and asked him to refrain from playing poker with Phillip. But, declared Bassett, it had ended there; he had not mentioned the matter to any one else. Phillip was glad of that, but it did not, he told himself, mitigate John’s offense. John had treated him like an irresponsible child—had deceived him, had made him an object of amusement, perhaps ridicule, to Bassett at least; probably to David as well. Phillip could not forgive him that.

It was quite conceivable that John did not guess what he held against him; he probably did not for a moment suspect that Phillip had found him out. And so perhaps David was right and it was Phillip’s duty to acquaint John with the cause of the estrangement. But he would not call on David. He would write John a note. Yet, when it came down to doing so, when the paper was before him and the pen in his hand, the task proved too difficult; he was not a ready writer, and after several attempts he put it off. The result was that the note was never written.

On Thursday Phillip went to Everett’s room in Beck with his heart thumping madly under his new[341] Ascot tie. The thought of meeting Betty again was as delicious as it was disquieting. How could he explain his apparent indifference to her existence during the past six weeks? Would she forgive him? He was forced to acknowledge that he had given her excellent reasons for not doing so.

When he reached Everett’s door sounds from within told him that the visitors had already arrived. When he entered he found them roaming about the study, examining the pictures, reading the shingles, peeping curiously among the litter on the mantel, and all the while deftly preening themselves, smoothing their dresses, touching their hair with little surreptitious glances into mirrors, and asking many questi............