manners and ease. And while he was not so good-looking in his evening clothes as he had been in his white sweater, he was good-looking enough to cause much comment, and to have people ask about him.
"A friend of Hildegarde," Carew had told them, and had resented the fact that Hildegarde should have such a friend.
He had had only a moment's conversation with Crispin, and he had recognized in that moment a force stronger than his own, and he had feared it.
And fearing it, he had only one recourse. To run away. He would take Hildegarde to Europe. He and Merry had talked it over—a villa in Capri or an apartment in Venice. A new world for Hildegarde! A world in which young country lovers would have no part. A world in which Carew would have his daughter to himself.
And Winslow had said that this would all be possible—if Carew would say a good word for him here and there to the other men who were dining tonight at his table. It was not a thing that he liked to do, to use his guests for his own advantage. But he was up against a blank wall, and he would sponsor no cause that he did not believe in. Thus it became for him a matter of taste, rather than of conscience. He would do no act of dishonesty, no matter what happened. But why should he question, if he knew that by obliging a friend he could help himself? Once upon a time he had been squeamish in such matters, but Corinne had laughed at his "knightliness" and had called it out of date. Elizabeth had never laughed. She had loved it.
But he did not want to think of Elizabeth and of the
