"And I'm going to get that scoundrel--you see! Only to-day I had word from the Police Commissioner that his department at last had clues to that fellow Preston.

And, besides," he ended cuttingly, "though I was deceived, I at least made an effort to spend my money upon a worthy object." They glared into one another's eyes; old friends now thoroughly aroused against each other.

They might be sarcastic or out-spoken; but their self-respect, their good-breeding, would not permit them to become vituperative, to lose themselves in outbursts of wrath--though such might have been the healthier course.

They knew how to plug the volcano.

So for a space, though they quivered, they were silent.
Mrs.De Peyster it was who first spoke.