One afternoon, swinging along Fifth Avenue in his down-town walk,
Samson met Mr. Farbish, who fell into step with him, and began to make
conversation.

"By the way, South," he suggested after the commonplaces had been
disposed of, "you'll pardon my little prevarication the other evening
about having met you at the Manhattan Club?"

"Why was it necessary?" inquired Samson, with a glance of disquieting
directness.

"Possibly, it was not necessary, merely politic. Of course," he
laughed, "every man knows two kinds of women. It's just as well not to
discuss the nectarines with the orchids, or the orchids with the
nectarines."

Samson made no response. But Farbish, meeting his eyes, felt as though
he had been contemptuously rebuked. His own eyes clouded with an
impulse of resentment. But it passed, as he remembered that his plans
involved the necessity of winning this boy's confidence. An assumption
of superior virtue, he thought, came rather illogically from Samson,
who had brought to the inn a young woman whom he should not have
exposed to comment. He, himself, could afford to be diplomatic.
Accordingly, he laughed.

"You mustn't take me too literally, South," he explained. "The life
here has a tendency to make us cynical in our speech, even though we
may be quite the reverse in our practices. In point of fact, I fancy we
were both rather out of our element at Collasso's studio."