“No,” Ellis reported to his employer, on the interview, “he didn’t exactly ask that we let up entirely.  But he seemed to think we were going too strong.  I couldn’t quite get his reasons, except that he thought it was a terrible thing for the Pierce girl, and she so young.  Queer thing from Merritt.  They don’t make ’em any straighter than he is.”

Alone of the lot of protests, that of Mrs. Festus Willard gained a response from Hal.

“You’re treating her very harshly, Hal.”

“We’re giving the facts, Lady Jinny.”

“Are they the facts? All the facts?”

“So far as human eyes could see them.”

“Men’s eyes don’t see very far where a woman is concerned.  She’s very young and headstrong, and, Hal, she hasn’t had much chance, you know.  She’s Elias Pierce’s daughter.”

“Thus having every chance, one would suppose.”

“Every chance of having everything.  Very little chance of being anything.”

There was a pause.  Then:  “Very well, Hal, I know I can trust you to do what you believe right, at least.  That’s a good deal.  Festus tells me to let you alone.  He says that you must fight your own fight in your own way.  That’s the whole principle of salvation in Festus’s creed.”

“Not a bad one,” said Hal.  “I’m not particularly liking to do this, you know, Lady Jinny.”

“So I can understand.  Have you heard anything from Esme Elliot since she left?”

“No.”

“You mustn’t drop out of the set, Hal,” said the little woman anxiously.  “You’ve made good so quickly.  And our crowd doesn’t take up with the first comer, you know.”

Since Esme Elliot had passed out of his life, as he told himself, Hal found no incentive to social amusements.  Hence he scarcely noticed a slow but widening ostracism which shut him out from house after house, under the pressure of the Pierce influence.  But Mrs. Festus Willard had perceived and resented it.  That any one for whom she had stood sponsor should fail socially in Worthington was both irritating and incredible to her.  Hence she made more of Hal than she might otherwise have found time to do, and he was much with her and Festus Willard, deriving, on the one hand, recreation and amusement from her sparkling camaraderie, and on the other, support and encouragement from her husband’s strong, outspoken, and ruggedly honest common sense.  Neither of them fully approved of his attack on Kathleen Pierce, whom they understood better than he did.  But they both—­and more particularly Festus Willard—­appreciated the courage and honor of the “Clarion’s” new standards.

Except for an occasional dinner at their house, and a more frequent hour late in the afternoon or early in the evening, with one or both of them, Hal saw almost nothing of the people into whose social environment he had so readily slipped.  Because of his exclusion, there prospered the more naturally a casual but swiftly developing intimacy which had sprung up between himself and Milly Neal.