All of which, of course, was like oil upon a fire; the heavens were lighted up with the conflagration.  The next development was a paragraph in Society’s scandal-sheet—­telling with infinite gusto how a certain ultra-fashionable matron had taken up a family of stranded waifs from a far State, and introduced them into the best circles, and even gone so far as to give a magnificent dance in their honour; and how the discovery had been made that the head of the family had been secretly preparing an attack upon their business interests; and of the tearing of hair and gnashing of teeth which had followed—­and the violent quarrel in a public place.  The paragraph concluded with the prediction that the strangers would find themselves the centre of a merry social war.

Oliver was the first to show them this paper.  But lest by any chance they should miss it, half a dozen unknown friends were good enough to mail them copies, carefully marked.—­And then came Reggie Mann, who as free-lance and gossip-gatherer sat on the fence and watched the fun; Reggie wore a thin veil of sympathy over his naked glee, and brought them the latest reports from all portions of the battle-ground.  Thus they were able to know exactly what everybody was saying about them—­who was amused and who was outraged, and who proposed to drop them and who to take them up.

Montague listened for a while, but then he got tired of it, and went for a walk to escape it—­but only to run into another trap.  It was dark, and he was strolling down the Avenue, when out of a brilliantly lighted jewellery shop came Mrs. Billy Alden to her carriage.  And she hailed him with an exclamation.

“You man,” she cried, “what have you been doing?”

He tried to laugh it off and escape, but she took him by the arm, commanding, “Get in here and tell me about it.”

So he found himself moving with the slow stream of vehicles on the Avenue, and with Mrs. Billy gazing at him quizzically and asking him if he did not feel like a hippopotamus in a frog-pond.

He replied to her raillery by asking her under which flag she stood.  But there was little need to ask that, for anyone who was fighting a Walling became ipso facto a friend of Mrs. Billy’s.  She told Montague that if he felt his social position was imperilled, all he had to do was to come to her.  She would gird on her armour and take the field.

“But tell me how you came to do it,” she said.

He answered that there was very little to tell.  He had taken up a case which was obviously just, but having no idea what a storm it would raise.

Then he noticed that his companion was looking at him sharply.  “Do you really mean that’s all there is to it?” she asked.

“Of course I do,” said he, perplexed.

“Do you know,” was her unexpected response, “I hardly know what to make of you.  I’m afraid to trust you, on account of your brother.”

Montague was embarrassed.  “I don’t know what you mean,” he said.