“I’m so sorry,” she repeated.  “If Lily could have been moved—­”

“That’s out of the question,” he returned impatiently.

“I suppose so.”

Her lip was beginning to tremble, and he felt himself a brute.

“He must come, of course,” he said.  “When is—­his day?”

“I’m afraid—­to-morrow.”

“Very well.  Send a note in the morning.”

The butler entered to announce dinner.

Waythorn turned to his wife.  “Come—­you must be tired.  It’s beastly, but try to forget about it,” he said, drawing her hand through his arm.

“You’re so good, dear.  I’ll try,” she whispered back.

Her face cleared at once, and as she looked at him across the flowers, between the rosy candle-shades, he saw her lips waver back into a smile.

“How pretty everything is!” she sighed luxuriously.

He turned to the butler.  “The champagne at once, please.  Mrs. Waythorn is tired.”

In a moment or two their eyes met above the sparkling glasses.  Her own were quite clear and untroubled:  he saw that she had obeyed his injunction and forgotten.

Waythorn moved away with a gesture of refusal

II

A small effaced-looking man.

WAYTHORN, the next morning, went down town earlier than usual.  Haskett was not likely to come till the afternoon, but the instinct of flight drove him forth.  He meant to stay away all day—­he had thoughts of dining at his club.  As his door closed behind him he reflected that before he opened it again it would have admitted another man who had as much right to enter it as himself, and the thought filled him with a physical repugnance.

He caught the “elevated” at the employees’ hour, and found himself crushed between two layers of pendulous humanity.  At Eighth Street the man facing him wriggled out and another took his place.  Waythorn glanced up and saw that it was Gus Varick.  The men were so close together that it was impossible to ignore the smile of recognition on Varick’s handsome overblown face.  And after all—­why not?  They had always been on good terms, and Varick had been divorced before Waythorn’s attentions to his wife began.  The two exchanged a word on the perennial grievance of the congested trains, and when a seat at their side was miraculously left empty the instinct of self-preservation made Waythorn slip into it after Varick.

The latter drew the stout man’s breath of relief.

“Lord—­I was beginning to feel like a pressed flower.”  He leaned back, looking unconcernedly at Waythorn.  “Sorry to hear that Sellers is knocked out again.”

“Sellers?” echoed Waythorn, starting at his partner’s name.

Varick looked surprised.  “You didn’t know he was laid up with the gout?”

“No.  I’ve been away—­I only got back last night.”  Waythorn felt himself reddening in anticipation of the other’s smile.