Club-stories came to him that he had tried
to get away from--the kind of stories that were told about any prominent
man, he supposed--a little leering paragraph in "Town Gossip"--a dozen
words dropped with the easy assuredness of tone that meant the speakers
were alluding to something that everyone knew by people who hadn't realized
that he was Peter's friend. A caustically frank discussion of Mrs.
Severance with Ted in one of Ted's bitter moods--a discussion that had
given Oliver a bad half-hour later with Louise.
But things like that didn't _happen_--people whose houses you stayed
at--people your sister brought home over the week-end--the fathers of your
own friends. And then Oliver winced as he remembered the afternoon when all
the New Haven evening papers had screamed with headlines over the Witterly
divorce suit--and Bob Witterly's leaving College because he couldn't stand
it--that had been people you knew all right--and everyone had always had
such a good time at the Witterlys' too.
It was all perfectly incredible of course--but he would have to find Ted
just as soon as possible, no matter where he had to go to find him--and as
the little reel of the speedometer began to hitch toward the left and into
higher figures, Oliver felt very relieved indeed that he had the two-seater
and that Mr.
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