"I don't give a damn for them!" Woodside declared.
"Maybe you don't—but Mrs. Woodside does—and you do too, if you'd be honest. Everyone does, Josh, everyone does. It's a humanly universal failing. Let some set themselves up as particularly exclusive and the rest are wild to get in with them."
"Hell!" muttered Woodside.
The two men smoked a while in silence—then Woodside spoke.
"It's mighty queer," he said, "and altogether lucky for you."
Porshinger raised his eyes and waited inquiringly.
"Altogether lucky!" the other repeated. "You back out of a 'happen in' yesterday, and receive a 'come-in' to-day. Can you explain it?"
"I can't explain it—unless it is the result of my walk with Mrs. Lorraine, yesterday morning. However, I'm frank to say that I didn't play a particularly heroic part in the bull episode; so unless I made an impression otherwise I reckon that isn't it."
"Has Miss Chamberlain been especially friendly before this?" Woodside asked.
"Not at all."