inute interest in his surroundings.
Heretofore he had viewed the life about him in the impersonal fashion in
which persons of large interests and wide experience regard unimportant
people doing unimportant things. In the light of what he had learned he
placed a new interpretation upon the curious stares, averted faces,
frankly disapproving looks or challenging insolence of glances such as
he received from Mr. Rhodes's bold eyes. He smiled often in keen
enjoyment of his shady reputation and kept adding to his unpopularity by
steadfastly refusing to be drawn into poker games which bore evidence of
having been arranged for his benefit.

The experience of being avoided by the respectably inclined and sought
after by those who had no respectability to lose was a new experience to
Van Lennop, who had been accustomed from infancy to the deference which
is tacitly accorded those of unusual wealth; but even had he found the
antagonistic atmosphere which he encountered frequently now annoying, he
would have felt more than compensated by the knowledge that he had
discovered in the little belle of Crowheart a friend whose loyalty was
strong enough to stand the difficult test of public opinion.

Essie Tisdale had no notion that Van Lennop had overheard her quarrel
with the Frenchman, but her quick perceptions recognized an added
friendliness in his manner--a kind of unbending gentleness which was
new--and she needed it for she daily felt the growing lack of it in
people whom she had called her friends.

In the days which followed, Van Lennop sometimes asked himself if
anything had gone wrong with Essie Tisdale. Her shapely head had a proud
uplift which was new and in unguarded moments her red, sensitive lips
had a droop that he had not noticed before.

Essie Tisdale was not, in her feelings, unlike a frolicsome puppy that
has received its first vicious kick. She was digesting the new knowledge
that there were people who could hurt others deliberately, cruelly, and
so far as she knew, without provocation; that there were people whom she
had counted her friends that were capable of hurting her--who could
wound her like enemies. And, like the puppy who runs from him who has
inflicted his first pain and turns to look with bewilderment and
reproach in his soft puppy eyes, Essie felt no resentment yet, only
surprise and the pain of the blow together with a great and growing
wonder as to what she had done.

The ordeal of the dinner ha