he had deceived him; and
the discovery that she was completely unconscious of states of feeling
on which so much of his inner life depended marked a new stage in their
relation. He was not thinking of all this as he sat beside Clare Van
Degen; but it was part of the chronic disquietude which made him more
alive to his cousin's sympathy, her shy unspoken understanding. After
all, he and she were of the same blood and had the same traditions. She
was light and frivolous, without strength of will or depth of purpose;
but she had the frankness of her foibles, and she would never have lied
to him or traded on his tenderness.

Clare's nervousness gradually subsided, and she lapsed into a low-voiced
mood which seemed like an answer to his secret thought. But she did not
sound the personal note, and they chatted quietly of commonplace things:
of the dinner-dance at which they were presently to meet, of the
costume she had chosen for the Driscoll fancy-ball, the recurring
rumours of old Driscoll's financial embarrassment, and the mysterious
personality of Elmer Moffatt, on whose movements Wall Street was
beginning to fix a fascinated eye. When Ralph, the year after his
marriage, had renounced his profession to go into partnership with a
firm of real-estate agents, he had come in contact for the first time
with the drama of "business," and whenever he could turn his attention
from his own tasks he found a certain interest in watching the fierce
interplay of its forces. In the down-town world he had heard things
of Moffatt that seemed to single him out from the common herd of
money-makers: anecdotes of his coolness, his lazy good-temper, the
humorous detachment he preserved in the heat of conflicting interests;
and his figure was enlarged by the mystery that hung about it--the fact
that no one seemed to know whence he came, or how he had acquired the
information which, for the moment, was making him so formidable. "I
should like to see him," Ralph said; "he must be a good specimen of the
one of the few picturesque types we've got."

"Yes--it might be amusing to fish him out; but the most picturesque
types in Wall Street are generally the tamest in a drawing-room." Clare
considered. "But doesn't Undine know him? I seem to remember seeing them
together."

"Undine and Moffatt? Then you KNOW him--you've' met him?"

"Not actually met him--but he's been pointed out to me. It must have
been some years ago. Yes--it was one night at th