“You have done so beautifully up to this time,” she protested to the dolorous Brock, “why should you be afraid?  I once read of an Indian chief whose name was Young-Man-Afraid-of-his-Wife!  He was a very brave fellow in spite of all that.  You are afraid of Edith, but can’t you be like the Indian?  He—­”

“That’s all very nice,” mourned Brock, “but he could cover his confusion with war paint.  Don’t forget that, my dear.  Think of the difference in our disguises!  War paint in daubs versus spats and an eyeglass.  Besides, he didn’t have to talk West End English.  And, moreover, he lived in a wigwam, and didn’t have to explain a sky bedroom to strangers who happened along.”

“That is a bit awkward,” she confessed thoughtfully.  “But can’t you say that you have insomnia, and can’t sleep unless you are above the noise of the street?”

He looked at her with an expression that made a verbal reply to this suggestion altogether unnecessary.

“Nurse says that Tootles has forgotten the real Roxbury,” she went on, after a moment.  “See how cleverly you have played the part.”

Still he stared moodily, unconvinced, at the roadway ahead.  They were driving in the Haupt Allee.

“I hope I haven’t got Roxbury into trouble by that interview I gave out concerning the new method of fire-proofing woodwork in office buildings and hotels.  It occurred to me afterward that he is violently opposed to the system.  I advocated it.  He’ll have a—­I might say, a devil of a time explaining his change of front.”

As a matter of fact, when Medcroft, hiding in London, saw the reproduced interview in the “Times,” together with editorial comments upon the extraordinary attitude of a supposedly conservative Englishman of recognised ability, he was tried almost beyond endurance.  For the next two or three days the newspapers printed caustic contributions from fellow architects and builders, in each of which the luckless Medcroft was taken to task for advocating an impractical and fatuous New York hobby in the way of construction,—­something that staid old London would not even tolerate or discuss.  The social chroniclings of the Medcrofts in Vienna, as despatched by the correspondents, offset this unhappy “bull” to some extent, in so far as Medcroft’s peace of mind was concerned, but nothing could have drawn attention to the fact that he was not in London at that particular time so decisively as the Vienna interview and its undefended front.  Even his shrewdest enemy could not have suspected Medcroft of a patience which would permit him to sit quiet in London while the attacks were going on.  He found some small solace in the reflection that he could make the end justify the means.