“One had nothing to do with the other,” Jasper stated tersely, ignoring Babb’s query, “but was entirely my own fault.”  The conversation lagged painfully again, during which Essie skilfully compounded another mixture of spirits and thick, yellow juice.  She grew sullen with resentment at Jasper Penny’s attitude, and exchanged enigmatic glances with Culser.  The liquor brought a quick flush to her slightly pendulous cheeks, and she was enveloped in an increasing bravado.  “Penny’s a solemn old boy,” she announced generally.  Lambert Babb attempted to embrace Myrtilla, but, her gaze on the newcomer, she pushed him away.  “You got to be a gentleman with me,” she proclaimed with a patently unsteady dignity.  “My grandfather was a French noble.”

“What I’d like to know,” Essie remarked, “is what’s his granddaughter?”

“Better’n you!” Myrtilla heatedly asserted; “one who’d appreciate a real man, and not be playing about private with a tailor’s dummy.”  Daniel Culser’s face grew noticeably pinker.  “I’m going,” Myrtilla continued, rising.  “Mr. Penny, I’d be happy to meet you under more social conditions.  Here I cannot remain for—­for reasons.  I might be tempted to—­” Mr. Babb caught her arm under his, and, at an imperious gesture from Essie, piloted her from the room.  Culser rose.

“Don’t go, Dan,” Essie Scofield told him defiantly.  But Jasper Penny maintained a silence that forced the younger man to make a stiff exit.  “Well,” Essie demanded, flinging herself on the deserted sofa, “now you’ve spoiled my evening.  Why did you come at all if you couldn’t behave genteel?”

“Where, exactly, is Eunice?” he asked abruptly.

She glanced at him with an instant masking of her resentment.  “I’ve told you a hundred times—­in the house of a very respectable clergyman.  My letter was clear enough; she’s had bronchitis, and there’s the doctor, and—­”

“Just where is Eunice?” he repeated, interrupting her aggrieved recital.

“Where I put her,” her voice grew shrill.  “You haven’t asked to see her for near a year, you haven’t even pretended an interest in—­in your own daughter.  I’ve done the best I could; you know I don’t like children around; but I have attended to as much of my duty as you.  Now you come out and insist on being unpleasant all in an hour.  Why didn’t you write?  I’d had her here for you.  Come back in two or three days.”

“To-morrow,” he replied.  “I am going to see her in the morning.”

“You just ain’t.  I did the best I knew, but, if it isn’t all roses, you’ll blame everything on me.  I will have Eunice fetched—­”

“Where is she?” he asked still again, wearily.

Every instinct revolted against the degradation into which he had blindly walked.  His youth had betrayed him, involving him, practically a different man, in a payment which he realized had but commenced....  To escape.  He had first thought of that with the unconscious conviction that the mere wish carried its fulfilment.  In fact, it would be immensely difficult; a man, he saw, could not sever himself so casually from the past; it reached without visible demarcation into the present, the future.  All was a piece, one with another; and Essie Scofield was drawn in a vivid thread through the entire fabric of his being.