"Oh," she answered, "he lost. The jury found against him. I was there for an hour, just at the end."
He made an exclamation of surprise, and stole a quick glance at her, but she had bent down to straighten a shoe-buckle and he could not see her face. "Ah well," he said, "it won't do him any harm to get a set-back now and then. Perhaps he needs it. Were there many there?"
"Half the world," she answered. "I saw Cameron Craig."
"So he is in town, eh? I must send a note to the hotel and ask him to luncheon to-morrow."
She was silent and he said quizzically. "Come, my dear, you mustn't be such a chin-tilted patrician. 'Other times, other manners.' Craig has his place, and it's not a low one, either."
She made a move of impatience. "He's a member of the best clubs in his own city, and all that, I know. He belongs there. But here it is different. We are not beholden to him. Why should we go out of our way to treat him like one of us? He isn't, really. He may be a University man and he may have travelled all over the world. Yes, and I'll admit he has manners—a manner, if you like—too. But there's something that keeps him an outsider just the same. Besides, people tell unpleasant tales about him."
Her father cleared his throat. Gossip had been prolific in tales of Craig as regarded the fairer—and frailer—sex. He had heard the stories—unsavoury ones, such as inevitably cling to men, whatever their business or social standing, who acquire the whispered reputation of the voluptuary. He had himself, however, a singular reserve of judgment, coupled with an impatient intolerance of scandal. Men to him were as he found them, till the event proved otherwise.
"I know what you mean," he said judicially. "He hasn't our traditions and standards. That's true. He's not born to them. But this is an uncharitable world, my dear, and half the tattle one hears is apt to be sheer envy. He is a person of importance. He has a good deal of influence, as well as money, and is affiliated with men with whom a large part of my earlier life was associated."
She hardly heard his closing words: "Influence and money!" she repeated, with a little shrug. "Why need we bother about them! The Judiciary, thank heaven! has nothing to do with political influence, and as for money, I should hate to think that what we have came, like his, from the United Distilleries!"
"Echo!" The name fell sharply behind them.