“I’ve been trying to tell you—­”

“And now you must....  Is there a cigar handy?...  Thanks....  This whiskey is prime stuff....  Go on.  I’m waiting.”

“Well,” Peter Kenny confessed sheepishly.  “I’m in love—­”

“And you proposed to her to-night at the ball?”

“Yes, and—­”

“She refused you.”

“Yes, but—­”

“So you decided to do the manly thing—­go out and pollute yourself with drink?”

“That’s about the size of it,” Peter admitted, shamefaced.

“It’s no good reason,” announced P. Sybarite.  “Now, if you’d been celebrating your happy escape, I’d be the last to blame you.”

“You don’t understand, and you won’t give me a chance—­”

“I’m waiting—­all ears—­but not the way you mean.”

“It wasn’t as if she’d left me any excuse to hope ... but she told me flat she didn’t care for me.”

“That’s bad, Peter.  Forgive my ill-timed levity:  I didn’t mean it meanly, boy,” P. Sybarite protested.

“It’s worse than you think,” Peter complained.  “I can stand her not caring for me.  Why should she?”

“Why, indeed?”

“It’s because she’s gone and promised to marry Bayard Shaynon.”

P. Sybarite looked dazed.

“She?  Bayard Shaynon?  Who’s the girl?”

“Marian Blessington.  Why do you ask?  Do you know her?”

There was a pause.  P. Sybarite blinked furiously.

“I’ve heard that name,” he said quietly, at length.  “Isn’t she old Brian’s ward—­the girl who disappeared recently?”

“She didn’t disappear, really.  She’s been staying with friends—­told me so herself.  That’s all the foundation the Journal had for its story.”

“Friends?”

“So she said.”

“Did she name them?”

“No—­”

“Or say where?”

“No; but some place out of town, of course.”

“Of course,” P. Sybarite repeated mechanically.  He eyed fixedly the ash on the end of his cigar.  “And she told you she meant to marry Bayard Shaynon, did she!”

“She said she’d promised....  And that,” the boy broke out, “was what drove me crazy.  He’s—­he’s—­well, you know what he is.”

“His father’s son,” said P. Sybarite gloomily.

“He was there to-night—­the old man, too; and after what Marian had told me, I just couldn’t trust myself to meet or speak to either of them.  So I bolted back here, took a stiff drink, changed from costume to these clothes, and went out to make a besotted ass of myself.  Naturally I landed in Dutch House.  And there—­the first thing I noticed when I went in was old Shaynon, sitting at the same table you took, later—­waiting.  Imagine my surprise—­I’d left him at the Bizarre not thirty minutes before!”

“I’m imagining it, Peter.  Get ahead.”