her, had Mary Zattiany never crossed his horizon. But he felt
sorry for his friend and would have liked to banish his brooding
distress.

"Look here!" he exclaimed. "You'll have to buck up and take her in
hand. After all, you're her father and she respects you. No girl
respects her mother these days, apparently, but the father has the
advantage of being male. Give her a talking to. Tell her how cut up
you are. She's too young to be as hard as she likes to think. Don't
preach. That would make matters worse. Appeal to her. Tell her she's
making you miserable. If that doesn't work--well, your idea of taking
a switch to her isn't bad. A sound spanking is what they all need, and
it certainly would take the starch out of them. Make them feel so
damned young they'd forget just how blase they're trying to be."

"She might run away," rumbled Oglethorpe. "I believe I'll try it,
though, if worse comes to worst. I'll have no filthy scandals in my
family."

"Why not collect all the fathers and plan a regular campaign? Without
their allowances they'd soon be helpless. It would be a battle royal
and might make history! Might also get hold of the fathers of these
young chaps. Few have independent incomes."

Oglethorpe laughed for the first time. "Not a bad idea for a bachelor,
Lee. Maybe I'll try it. Let's get out of this. How about the
Follies?"

XXV

When a man has cultivated a practical and methodical habit of mind and
body he pursues the accustomed tenor of his way, whatever the ferment
of his spirit. Clavering's spirit was mercurial, but long since
subject to his will, and it would no more have occurred to him to
neglect his regular work because he was in love and a state of suspense
than to put on petticoats and walk up Fifth Avenue. It might be better
or worse under foreign impact, but it would be done, and all else
banished for the hour.

There were times when he wrote better surrounded by the stimulations of
the office; when he was neither fagged nor disturbed he worked at home.
During this week of incertitudes he rose late, lunched with friends at
the Sign of the Indian Chief, a restaurant where the cleverest of
them--and those who were so excitedly sure of their cleverness that for
the moment they convinced others as well as themselves--foregathered
daily. Then he went to the office and wrote or talked to other men
until it was time to dine. He could always be sure of companionship