I met Ethel Traverse.”

Valancy shivered. Barney, his hands stuck in his pockets, was regarding the floor moodily and didn’t notice it.

“Dad told you about her, I suppose. She was very beautiful. And I loved her. Oh, yes, I loved her. I won’t deny it or belittle it now. It was a lonely, romantic boy’s first passionate love, and it was very real. And I thought she loved me. I was fool enough to think that. I was wildly happy when she promised to marry me. For a few months. Then — I found out she didn’t. I was an involuntary eavesdropper on a certain occasion for a moment. That moment was enough. The proverbial fate of the eavesdropper overtook me. A girl friend of hers was asking her how she could stomach Doc. Redfern’s son and the patent-medicine background.