material, but he met their overtures discreetly, and they presently said,
Well, they guessed they must go; and went. Fane turned to encounter
Gregory, who had come in by a side door.

"Fane, I want to beg your pardon. I was rude to you just now."

"Oh, no! Oh, no!" the clerk protested. "That's all right. Sit down a
while, can't you, and talk with a fellow. It's early, yet."

"No, I can't. I just wanted to say I was sorry I spoke in that way.
Good-night. Is there anything in particular?"

"No; good-night. I was just wondering about--that girl."

"Oh!"




VI.

Gregory had an habitual severity with his own behavior which did not stop
there, but was always passing on to the behavior of others; and his days
went by in alternate offence and reparation to those he had to do with.
He had to do chiefly with the dining-room girls, whose susceptibilities
were such that they kept about their work bathed in tears or suffused
with anger much of the time. He was not only good-looking but he was a
college student, and their feelings were ready to bud toward him in
tender efflorescence, but he kept them cropped and blighted by his curt
words and impatient manner. Some of them loved him for the hurts he did