“It’s so. That is the way I came to know him.”

Miss Leroy laughed. “And Helen said he was a man who needed help in talking!”

“Was Mrs. D’Alloi a great friend of his?”

“No. She told me that Watts had brought him to see them only once. I don’t think Mr. Pierce liked him.”

“He evidently was very much hurt at Watts’s not writing him.”

“Yes. I was really sorry I spoke, when I saw how he took it.”

“Watts is a nice boy, but he always was thoughtless.”

In passing out of the dining-room, Dorothy had spoken to a man for a moment, and he at once joined Peter.

“You know my sister, Miss Ogden, who’s the best representative of us,” he said. “Now I’ll show you the worst. I don’t know whether she exploited her brother Ogden to you?”

“Yes. She talked about you and your brother this evening.”