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 under a haphazard visit. He had written, and had no answer. He had telephoned, and found it impossible to get Susie to come to the telephone. Austin, who was one of those people who have the strange combination of sensitiveness and persistence which causes them to go on running their breasts against the lance of circumstance and to feel the resulting wound, was deeply wounded now, but not as deeply wounded as he would have been if he had not been so terribly busy.

But on the afternoon that the girls went away for the brief Easter vacation, he had the inspiration of calling up Mrs. Rolles herself. After all, she would be better than no one. He could at least talk to her about Susie, and find out if David were making more of a success than he had—David with that "very aristocratic kind of ugliness" that Austin envied so much.

Mrs. Rolles was all graciousness, and asked him, or rather permitted him, to come to tea that very afternoon. Nothing was said about Susie, but of course he knew she would be out, or he would not have been allowed to come.

As he entered, the ugliness of the brocaded drawing-room struck him for the first time.