were as helpless as rabbits before him."

It all came up before her as she talked, that horrid encounter with
commercial ruthlessness: she saw again poor 'Gene's outraged face of
helpless anger, felt again the heat of sympathetic indignation she and
Neale had felt, recognized again the poison which triumphant
unrighteousness leaves behind. She shook her head impatiently, to shake
off the memory, and said aloud, "Oh, it makes me sick to remember it! We
couldn't believe, any of us, that such bare-faced iniquity could
succeed."

"There's a good deal of bare-faced iniquity riding around prosperously
in high-powered cars," said Mr. Welles, with a lively accent of
bitterness. "You have to get used to it in business life. It's very
likely that your wicked Mr. Lowder in private life in New Hampshire is a
good husband and father, and contributes to all the charitable
organizations."

"I won't change _my_ conception of him as a pasty-faced demon," insisted
Marise.

It appeared that Mr. Marsh's appetite for local history was so slight as
to be cloyed even by the very much abbreviated account she had given
them, for he now said, hiding a small yawn, with no effort to conceal
the fact that he had been bored, "Mrs. Crittenden, I've heard from Mr.
Welles' house the most tantalizing snatches from your piano. Won't you,
now we're close to it, put the final touch to our delightful lunch-party
by letting us hear it?"

Marise was annoyed by his _grand seigneur_ air of certainty of his own