“Why,” cried Brent, with evident zest—­for he was a man who enjoyed sport in all its forms, even to baiting the husbands of his friends,—­“when I first set eyes on you, old fellow, I thought you knew a thing or two, and you’ve made a few turns since that confirmed the opinion.  But I’m beginning to perceive that you have limitations.  I could sit down here now, if there were any place to sit, and calculate how much living in this house would be worth to me in Wall Street.”

Honora, who had been listening uneasily, knew that a shrewder or more disturbing argument could not have been used on her husband; and it came from Trixton Brent—­to Howard at least—­ex cathedra.  She was filled with a sense of shame, which was due not solely to the fact that she was a little conscience-stricken because of her innocent complicity, nor that her husband did not resent an obvious attempt of a high-handed man to browbeat him; but also to the feeling that the character of the discussion had in some strange way degraded the house itself.  Why was it that everything she touched seemed to become contaminated?

“There’s no use staying any longer,” she said.  “Howard doesn’t like it.”

“I didn’t say so,” he interrupted.  “There’s something about the place that grows on you.  If I felt I could afford it—­”

“At any rate,” declared Honora, trying to control her voice, “I’ve decided, now I’ve seen it a second time, that I don’t want it.  I only wished him to look at it,” she added, scornfully aware that she was taking up the cudgels in his behalf.  But she could not bring herself, in Brent’s presence, to declare that the argument of the rent seemed decisive.

Her exasperation was somewhat increased by the expression on Trixton Brent’s face, which plainly declared that he deemed her last remarks to be the quintessence of tactics; and he obstinately refused, as they went down the stairs to the street, to regard the matter as closed.

“I’ll take him down town in the Elevated,” he said, as he put her into the carriage.  “The first round’s a draw.”

She directed the driver to the ferry again, and went back to Quicksands.  Several times during the day she was on the point of telephoning Brent not to try to persuade Howard to rent the house, and once she even got so far as to take down the receiver.  But when she reflected, it seemed an impossible thing to do.  At four o’clock she herself was called to the telephone by Mr. Cray, a confidential clerk in Howard’s office, who informed her that her husband had been obliged to leave town suddenly on business, and would not be home that night.

“Didn’t he say where he was going?” asked Honora.

“He didn’t even tell me, Mrs. Spence,” Cray replied, and Mr. Dallam doesn’t know.”

“Oh, dear,” said Honora, “I hope he realizes that people are coming for dinner to-morrow evening.”

“I’m positive, from what he said, that he’ll be back some time to-morrow,” Cray reassured her.