“I’m extremely fond of Neil. He’s good fun—or he used to be, before he became a mass-meeting. Besides, I don’t want to let him down.”

“You’re letting me down, aren’t you?”

“Could be.”

“Then you certainly can’t expect me–-”

“We don’t. We won’t. We won’t take another cent from you. Besides, Neil has the refusal of the most wonderful position in–-I won’t tell you anything about it, till it’s made public. Oh, Dad, you don’t want to persecute me, do you?”

“No, I want to save you.”

Repeat.

* * * * *

Elegant Eliot Hansen, whatever he might think of Neil Kingsblood, that traitor to his class and race, made it clear to Neil’s wife that he, Eliot, was merely the more loyal to her, and that he stood humbly ready to serve her with advice, sympathy, petty cash, discussion of the opera, brotherly handshakes, or anything of his that she could use. That resourceful willingness, combined with Eliot’s fresh, thin good looks and his habit of tilting his head at her like a worshipping dachshund, made him a more dangerous escape for Vestal than you would have thought.

Except for Eliot and Curtiss Havock, the men in what, till a few weeks ago, had been Neil and Vestal’s “bunch” were not a lecherous lot. They were solid homecomers who would have been embarrassed in strange bedrooms and impotent at the sight of a pink valence. They would have defined “venery” (if they had ever tried to define any words besides trade-balance, torque, and this-here-Fascism) as “sports of the hunting-field,” not as “sports of the boudoir.” But Eliot made up for the timidity of his peers. He was the specialist in goatishness as Judd Browler was the master of trout flies and Tom Crenway of salad-dressing. Just to be seen smiling privily with Eliot was enough to give a bored wife a secondary thrill and an interesting reputation. In the cosmos of Grand Republic, you can find everything, even if in miniature, and Eliot Hansen was Casanova and Solomon and the purer parts of the Marquis de Sade as condensed for newsstand sale in a reprint magazine.

Even to be in Eliot’s house, alone with his wife Daisy, was considered suggestive, and Vestal found herself there only because she was on the flower committee of the church, along with Daisy, Pomona Browler and Violet Crenway. They had tea at Daisy’s and, to their fury, were given tea at the tea, and as they all disliked one another, they concentrated on Vestal and hinted that they would be glad to receive any confidences about her troubles with Neil.

“What’s this I hear—that Neil is going to a bigger bank?” chirruped Violet, obviously meaning (or so the agitated Vestal suspected), “What’s the poor zany going to do, now that he’s fired?”

“Is Neil’s leg going to be strong enough for him to play tennis, next summer?” soothed Pomona, probably meaning “Will he dare to poke his nose into our dear little club and take a chance on having big, strong, indignantly family-protective aristocrats like my husband smash that black, flat, intrusive snout?”