"I know, I know, she's blind to everything, Miriam is ..."
Once more she placed her hand on Murgatroyd's arm, unconsciously, impersonally but impulsively.
"Oh, it's perfectly dreadful, the whole thing!"
Unwittingly, Murgatroyd changed his mood to meet hers.
"Yes," he said, "to have ruined himself like this! It's a tragedy to see a man like Challoner go down hill. In the old days he was such a decent chap."
"You were a friend of his, weren't you?"
"Yes, before he married, when he was poor and decent like the rest of us—yes, I was a friend of his."
Shirley Bloodgood drew her brows together.
"Indeed! You must have been a good friend to let him take his downward course."
For an instant this imputation seemed to rest heavily on Murgatroyd's shoulders; but he cast it from him quickly with a sigh, and answered:—