"Joe! Joe!"

But Foster was not to be stayed.

"And that poetry of Carolyn's! Medora herself came up and read it to me. Itwas a 'tribute,' she thought!"

"That won't amount to anything at all."

"It won't? With Hortense scornfully ridiculing it, and Carolyn burstinginto tears before she can make her bolt from the chamber, and Amy wonderingwhether, after all...! If things are as bad as they are for me up here, howmuch worse must they be for the rest of them far below! And that confoundedengagement has made it still worse all round!"

Randolph ran his palms over his perplexed temples. "Whose?"

"Whose? No wonder you ask! Engagements, then."

"When are they going to be married?"

"The first fortnight in May, I hear. But Pearson is trying for the middle ofApril. His flat is taken." Foster writhed inside his chair.

"Why do they care for him?" he burst out. "He's nothing in himself. And hecares nothing for them. And he cares nothing for you," Foster added boldly."All he has thought for is that fellow from up north."