After a half hour or so he heard some one descending and Dick Livingstone appeared in the hall.  He called to him, and Dick entered the room.  Before he sat down he lighted a cigarette and in the flare of the match Leslie got an impression of fatigue and of something new, of trouble.  But his own anxieties obsessed him.

“She’s told you about it, I suppose?”

“I was a fool, of course.  But it was only a matter of a few flowers and some afternoon calls.  She’s a fine woman, Livingstone, and she is lonely.  The women have given her a pretty cold deal since the Clark story.  They copy her clothes and her walk, but they don’t ask her into their homes.”

“Isn’t the trouble more fundamental than that, Ward?  I was thinking about it upstairs.  Nina was pretty frank.  She says you’ve had your good time and want to settle down, and that she is young and now is her only chance.  Later on there may be children, you know.  She blames herself, too, but she has a fairly clear idea of how it happened.”

“Do you think she’ll go back home?”

“She promised she would.”

They sat smoking in silence.  In the dining-room Annie was laying the table for dinner, and a most untragic odor of new garden peas began to steal along the hall.  Dick suddenly stirred and threw away his cigarette.

“I was going to talk to you about something else,” he said, “but this is hardly the time.  I’ll get on home.”  He rose.  “She’ll be all right.  Only I’d advise very tactful handling and—­the fullest explanation you can make.”

“What is it?  I’d be glad to have something to keep my mind occupied.  It’s eating itself up just now.”

“It’s a personal matter.”

Ward glanced up at him quickly.

“Yes?”

“Have you happened to hear a story that I believe is going round?  One that concerns me?”

“Well, I have,” Leslie admitted.  “I didn’t pay much attention.  Nobody is taking it very seriously.”

“That’s not the point,” Dick persisted.  “I don’t mind idle gossip.  I don’t give a damn about it.  It’s the statement itself.”

“I should say that you are the only person who knows anything about it.”

Dick made a restless, impatient gesture.

“I want to know one thing more,” he said.  “Nina told you, I suppose.  Does—­I suppose Elizabeth knows it, too?”

“I rather think she does.”

Dick turned abruptly and went out of the room, and a moment later Leslie heard the front door slam.  Elizabeth, standing at the head of the stairs, heard it also, and turned away, with a new droop to her usually valiant shoulders.  Her world, too, had gone awry, that safe world of protection and cheer and kindliness.  First had come Nina, white-lipped and shaken, and Elizabeth had had to face the fact that there were such things as treachery and the queer hidden things that men did, and that came to light and brought horrible suffering.