and he rose, saying:

"Did I understand you aright?" The manner and attitude were both
threatening though repressed.

"If you tell me that I misunderstood you, I will apologize. If you think
the statement insulting, I will withdraw it. I did not speak to insult
you; but because I wished you to know how your questions impressed me."

"When a man tells another he is contemptible, he cannot expect to escape
results. This is no place to have a scene. You may send me your apology
when we reach New York--"

Peter interrupted. "I shall, if you will tell me I wronged you in
supposing your questions to be malicious."

Lispenard paid no attention to the interjection. "Otherwise," he
finished, "we will consider our relations ended." He walked away.

Peter wrote Lispenard that evening a long letter. He did not apologize
in it, but it ended:

"There should be no quarrel between us, for we ought to be
friends. If alienation has come, it is due to what has occurred
to-day, and that shall not cause unkind feelings, if I can help
it. An apology is due somewhere. You either asked questions you
had no right to ask, or else I misjudged you. I have written you
my point of view. You have your own. I leave the matter to your
fairness. Think it over, and if you still find me in the wrong,
and will tell me so, I will apologize."

He did not receive a reply. Meeting Ogden Ogden a few days later, he was
told that Lispenard had gone west for a hunting trip, quite
unexpectedly. "He said not to expect him back till he came. He seemed
out of sorts at something." In September Peter had a letter from Miss De
Voe. Merely a few lines saying that she had decided to spend the winter
abroad, and was on the point of sailing. "I am too hurried to see my
friends, but did not like to go without some good-byes, so I write
them." On the whole, as in the case of most comedies, there was little
amusement for the actual performers. A great essayist has defined
laughter as a "feeling of superiority in the laugher over the object
laughed at." If this is correct, it makes all humor despicable.
Certainly much coarseness, meanness and cruelty are every day
tolerated, because of the comic covering with which it is draped.

It is not to be supposed that this comedy nor its winter prologue had
diverted Peter from other things. In spite of Miss De Voe's demands on
his time he had enough left to spend many days in Albany when the
le