"In the doorway back of Alex, Bayless come in, carrying a tray, but it didn't have no card.
"'It's somebody to speak with you a minute, Mr. Proudfit,' says Bayless. 'It's Mr. Insley.'
"'Have him come here,' Alex says. 'I hope,' he says, when the man was gone, 'that the poor fellow has changed his mind about our little festivities.'
"Robin sort of tipped up her forehead. 'Why poor?' she asks.
"'Poor,' says Alex, absent, 'because he lives in a pocket of the world, instead of wearing the world like a garment—when it would fit him.'
"I was just setting my tea-cup down when she answered, and I recollect I almost jumped:
"'He knows something better to do with the world than to wear it at all,' was what she said.
"I looked over at her. And maybe it was because she was sort of indignant, and maybe it was because she thought she had dared quite a good deal, but all of a sudden something sort of seemed to me to set fire to the minute, and it leaped up like a time by itself as we heard Insley's step crossing the library and coming towards us....
"When he come out where we were, I see right off how pale he looked. Almost with his greeting, he turned to Alex with what he had come for, and he put it blunt.