He blandly ignored telegrams and letters addressed to Roxbury Medcroft,
and once he sat like a lump, with everyone staring at him, when the
chairman of the architects' convention asked if Mr. Medcroft had
anything to say on the subject under discussion. He was forced, in some
confusion, to attribute his heedlessness to a life-long defect in
hearing. Thereafter it was his punishment to have his name and fragments
of conversation hurled about in tones so stentorian that he blushed for
very shame. In the Bristol, in the Kärntner-Ring, in the Lichtenstein
Gallery, in the Gardens--no matter where he went--if he were to be
accosted by any of the genial architects it was always in a voice that
attracted attention; he could have heard them if they had been a block
away. It became a habit with him to instinctively lift his hand to his
ear when one of them hove in sight, having seen him first.

"That's what I get for being a liar," he lamented dolefully. Constance
had just whispered her condolences. "Do you think they'll consider it
odd that you don't shout at me too?"

"You might explain that you can tell what I am saying by looking at my
lips," she said. He was immensely relieved.

Considerable difficulty had to be overcome at the Bristol in the matter
of rooms. Without going into details, Brock resignedly took the only
room left in the crowded hotel--a six by ten cubby-hole on the top floor
overlooking the air-shaft. He had to go down one flight for his morning
tub, and he never got it because he refused to stand in line and await
his turn. Mrs. Medcroft had the choicest room in the hotel, looking down
upon the beautiful Kärntner-Ring. Constance proposed, in the goodness of
her heart, to give up to Brock her own room, adjoining that of her
sister, provided Edith would take her in to sleep with her. Edith was