he tell her anything that he doesn't tell
me?"

It was a question which Sears could not answer. For some time he had
noticed and guessed and feared, but he could not tell her. So he was
silent, and to remain silent was perhaps the worst thing he could have
done.

"What do you know against Mr. Phillips?" she asked. "Tell me. Do you
know _anything_ to his discredit?"

Again he did not answer. She turned away.

"I thought not," she said. "Oh, envy is such a _mean_ trait. Well, I
suppose I shouldn't expect to have many friends--lasting friends."

"Here! hold on, Elizabeth. Don't say that."

"What else can I say? I am sorry I spoke to you as I did, but--I think
you have more than paid the debt.... Yes, mother, I am coming."

She went out of the room and Sears limped moodily home, reflecting, as
most of mankind has reflected at one time or another, upon the
unaccountableness of the feminine character. So far as he could see he
had said much less than he would have been justified in saying. She had
goaded him into saying even that. He pondered and puzzled over it the
greater part of the night and then reached the conclusion which the male
usually reaches under such circumstances, namely, that he had better ask
her pardon.

So when they next met he did that very thing and she accepted the
apology. And at that meeting, and others immediately following it, no
word was said by either concerning "spying" or Mr. Egbert Phillips. Yet
the wall between them was left a little higher than it had been before,
their friendship was not quite the same, and an experienced person, not
much of a prophet at that, could have foretold that the time was coming
when that friendship was to end.

It was little Esther Tidditt who laid the coping of the dividing wall.
Elvira Snowden built some of the upper tiers, but Esther finished the
job. Almost unbelievable as it may seem, she did not like Mr. Phillips.
Of course with her tendency to take the off side in all arguments and to
be almost invariably "agin the government," the fact that the rest of
feminine Bayport adored the glittering Egbert might have been of itself
sufficient to set up her opposition. But he had, or she considered that
he had, snubbed her on several occasions and she was a dangerous person
to snub. Judah expressed it characteristically when he declared that
anybody who "set out" to impose on Esther Tidditt would have as lively
a time as a bare-footed man trying to dance a