most _un_common gambler!" He chuckled at his little joke. "All sorts of
people are received here. We've got to get used to that. And certainly no
one could hope anywhere to find nicer--more presentable--people."

She nodded, but with a reservation.

"Surely nowhere would you find kinder people," went on Keith. "See how they
took us in!"

"Look out they don't take you in, Milton," she interjected suddenly.

Keith, brought up short, sobered at this.

"That is unjust, Nan," he said gravely.

She said nothing, but showed no signs of having been convinced. After her
first need had passed, Nan Keith's natural reserve had asserted itself.
This was the result of heredity and training, as part of herself, something
she could not help. Its tendency was always to draw back from too great or
too sudden intimacies. There was nothing snobbish in this; it was a sort of
instinct, a natural reaction. She liked Mrs. Sherwood, admired her slow,
complete poise, approved her air of breeding and the things by which she
had surrounded herself. The older woman's kindness had struck in her a deep
chord of appreciation. But somehow circumstances had hurried her too much.
Her defensive antagonism, not to Mrs. Sherwood as a person, but to sudden
intimacy as such, had been aroused. It had had, in her own mind, no excuse.
She knew she ought to be grateful and cordial; she felt that she was not
quite ready. The fact that the Sherwoods had proved to be "common gamblers"
gave just the little excuse her conscience needed to draw back a trifle.
This, it should be added, was also quite instinctive, not at all a