a kind of timid delight that he saw Stacy apparently enter into her mood, and with a still more timorous amusement to notice that he seemed to sympathize not only with her, but with her half-rallying, half-serious attitude towards his (Barker’s) inexperience and simplicity.  He was glad that she had made a friend of Stacy, even in this way.  Stacy would understand, as he did, her pretty willfulness at last; she would understand what a true friend Stacy was to him.  It was with unfeigned satisfaction that he followed them in to dinner as she leaned upon his guest’s arm, chatting confidentially.  He was only uneasy because her manner had a slight ostentation.

The entrance of the little party produced a quick sensation throughout the dining-room.  Whispers passed from table to table; all heads were turned towards the great financier as towards a magnet; a few guests even shamelessly faced round in their chairs as he passed.  Mrs. Barker was pink, pretty, and voluble with excitement; Stacy had a slight mask of reserve; Barker was the only one natural and unconscious.

As the dinner progressed Barker found that there was little chance for him to invoke his old partner’s memories of the past.  He found, however, that Stacy had received a letter from Demorest, and that he was coming home from Europe.  His letters were still sad; they both agreed upon that.  And then for the first time that day Stacy looked intently at Barker with the look that he had often worn on Heavy Tree Hill.

“Then you think it is the same old trouble that worries him?” said Barker in an awed and sympathetic voice.

“I believe it is,” said Stacy, with an equal feeling.  Mrs. Barker pricked up her pretty ears; her husband’s ready sympathy was familiar enough; but that this cold, practical Stacy should be moved at anything piqued her curiosity.

“And you believe that he has never got over it?” continued Barker.

“He had one chance, but he threw it away,” said Stacy energetically.  “If, instead of going off to Europe by himself to brood over it, he had joined me in business, he’d have been another man.”

“But not Demorest,” said Barker quickly.

“What dreadful secret is this about Demorest?” said Mrs. Barker petulantly.  “Is he ill?”

Both men were silent by their old common instinct.  But it was Stacy who said “No” in a way that put any further questioning at an end, and Barker was grateful and for the moment disloyal to his Kitty.

It was with delight that Mrs. Barker had seen that the attention of the next table was directed to them, and that even Mrs. Horncastle had glanced from time to time at Stacy.  But she was not prepared for the evident equal effect that Mrs. Horncastle had created upon Stacy.  His cold face warmed, his critical eye softened; he asked her name.  Mrs. Barker was voluble, prejudiced, and, it seemed, misinformed.

“I know it all,” said Stacy, with didactic emphasis.  “Her husband was as bad as they make them.  When her life had become intolerable with him, he tried to make it shameful without him by abandoning her.  She could get a divorce a dozen times over, but she won’t.”