"And if I were to tell you that I don't care for wine, Mr. Flint?"

He threw open his napkin with a flourish. "You'd be telling me a damned
lie! You drink wine at the Palace with Stillman and Edington."

She had felt that he was going to say some such thing and for a moment
it amused her. It was so ridiculous to find this rather wan and wistful
indiscretion assuming damaging proportions. But a nasty fear succeeded
her faint amusement. Could it be possible that Stillman had gossiped?

"Who told you?" she demanded.

"Oh, don't be afraid; it wasn't Stillman! You're like all women, you
moon about sentimentalizing over Ned until it makes a man like me sick!
I like Ned; I always have. But even when we went to college together it
was the same way. Everybody ... yes, even the men ... always gave him
credit for a high moral tone. Not that he ever took it.... I'll say that
for him.... Ned Stillman didn't tell me, for the simple reason that he
didn't have to. Nobody told me. I go to the Palace myself under
pressure, and I've got two eyes. As a matter of fact, there isn't any
reason why Edington or Stillman or the waiter who drew the corks
shouldn't have mentioned it. A glass of wine is no crime. But the thing
that makes me hot is to see any one pretending. If you drink with
Stillman, you haven't any license to refuse a glass with me."

There was something more than wine-heated rancor back of his harangue.
Claire guessed instinctively that he both loved and hated Stillman with
a curious confusion of impulses. It was a feeling of affection torn by
the irritating superiority of its object. One gets the same thing in