"I haven't had time to sleep as yet."

"I dropped in to suggest that a little sleep wouldn't do any harm."

"Not quite yet. Watch our friends eat. It gives me an appetite. Waiter, another dozen all round—and some more of this carbonated white wine you've labeled champagne."

As he called out this order, a grunt of satisfaction ran round the row of human derelicts. Tetlow shuddered, yet was moved and thrilled, too, as he glanced from face to face—those hideous hairy countenances, begrimed and beslimed, each countenance expressing in its own repulsive way the one emotion of gratified longing for food and drink. "Where did you get 'em?" inquired he.

"From the benches in Madison Square," replied Norman. He laughed queerly. "Recognize yourself in any of those mugs, Tetlow?" he asked.

Tetlow shivered. "I should say not!" he exclaimed.

Norman's eyes gleamed. "I see myself in all of 'em," said he.

"Poor wretches!" muttered Tetlow.

"Pity wasted," he rejoined. "You might feel sorry for a man on the way to where they've got. But once arrived—as well pity a dead man sleeping quietly in his box with three feet of solid earth between him and worries of every kind."

"Shake this crowd," said Tetlow impatiently. "I want to talk with you."

"All right, if it bores you." He sent the waiter out for enough lodging-house tickets to provide for all. He distributed them himself, to make sure that the proprietor of the restaurant did not attempt to graft. Then he roused Gaskill and bundled him into the car and sent it away to his address. The tramps gathered round and gave Norman three cheers—they pressed close while four of them tried to pick his and Tetlow's pockets. Norman knocked them away good-naturedly, and he and Tetlow climbed into Tetlow's hansom.

"To my place," suggested Tetlow.

"No, to mine—the Knickerbocker," replied Norman.

"I'd rather you went to my place first," said Tetlow uneasily.

"My wife isn't with me. She has left me," said Norman calmly.

Tetlow hesitated, extremely nervous, finally acquiesced. They drove a while in silence, then Norman said, "What's the business?"

"Galloway wants to see you."

"Tell him to come to my office to-morrow—that means to-day—at any time after eleven."

"But that gives you no chance to pull yourself together," objected Tetlow.

Norman's face, seen in the light of the street lamp they happened to be passing, showed ironic amusement. "Never mind about me, Billy. Tell him to come."

Tetlow cleared his throat nervously. "Don't you think, old man, that you'd better go to see him? I'll arrange the appointment."

Norman said quietly: "Tetlow, I've dropped pretty far. But not so far that I go to my clients. The rule of calls is that the man seeking the favor goes to the man who can grant it."

"But it isn't the custom nowadays for a lawyer to deal that way with a man like Galloway."

"And neither is it the custom for anyone to have any self-respect. Does Galloway need my brains more than I need his money, or do I need his money more than he needs my brains? You know what the answer to that is, Billy. We are partners—you and I. I'm training you for the position."

"Galloway won't come," said Tetlow curtly.

"So much the worse for him," retorted Norman placidly. "No—I've not been drinking too much, old man—as your worried—old-maid look suggests. Do a little thinking. If Galloway doesn't get me, whom will he get?"

"You know very well, Norman, there are scores of lawyers, good ones, who'd crawl at his feet for his business. Nowadays, most lawyers are always looking round for a pair of rich man's boots to lick."

"But I am not 'most lawyers,'" said Norman. "Of course, if Galloway could make me come to him, he'd be a fool to come to me. But when he finds I'm not coming, why, he'll behave himself—if his business is important enough for me to bother with."

"But if he doesn't come, Fred?"

"Then—my Universal Fuel scheme, or some other equally good. But you will never see me limbering my knees in the anteroom of a rich man, when he needs me and I don't need him."

"Well, we'll see," said Tetlow, with the air of a sober man patient with one who is not sober.

"By the way," continued Norman, "if Galloway says he's too ill to come—or anything of that sort—tell him I'd not care to undertake the affairs of a man too old or too feeble to attend to business, as he might die in the midst of it."

Tetlow's face was such a wondrous exhibit of discomfiture that Norman laughed outright. Evidently he had forestalled his fat friend in a scheme to get him to Galloway in spite of himself. "All right—all right," said Tetlow fretfully. "We'll sleep on this. But I don't see why you're so opposed to going to see the man. It looks like snobbishness to me—false pride—silly false pride."

"It is snobbishness," said Norman. "But you forget that snobbishness rules the world. The way to rule fools is to make them respect you. And the way to make them respect you is by showing them that they are your inferiors. I want Galloway's respect because I want his money. And I'll not get his money—as much of it as belongs to me—except by showing him my value. Not my value as a lawyer, for he knows that already, but my value as a man. Do you see?"

"No, I don't," snapped Tetlow.

"That's what it means to be Tetlow. Now, I do see—and that's why I'm Norman."

Tetlow looked at him doubtfully, uncertain whether he had been listening to wisdom put in a jocose form of audacious egotism or to the effervescings of intoxication. The hint of a smile lurking in the sobriety of the powerful features of his extraordinary friend only increased his doubt. Was Norman mocking him, and himself as well? If so, was it the mockery of sober sense or of drunkenness?

"You seem to be puzzled, Billy," said Norman, and Tetlow wondered how he had seen. "Don't get your brains in a stew trying to understand me. I'm acting the way I've always acted—except in one matter. You know that I know what I'm about?"

"I certainly do," replied his admirer.

"Then, let it go at that. If you could understand me—the sort of man I am, the sort of thing I do—you'd not need me, but would be the whole show yourself—eh? That being true, don't show yourself a commonplace nobody by deriding and denying what your brain is unable to comprehend. Show yourself a somebody by seeing the limitations of your ability. The world is full of little people who criticise and judge and laugh at and misunderstand the few real intelligences. And very tedious interruptions of the scenery those little people are. Don't be one of them. . . . Did you know my wife's father?"

Tetlow startled. "No—that is, yes," he stammered. "That is, I met him a few times."

"Often enough to find out that he was crazy?"

"Oh, yes. He explained some of his ideas to me. Yes—he was quite mad, poor fellow."

Norman gave way to a fit of silent laughter. "I can imagine," he presently said, "what you'd have thought if Columbus or Alexander or Napoleon or Stevenson or even the chaps who doped out the telephone and the telegraph—if they had talked to you before they arrived. Or even after they arrived, if they had been explaining some still newer and bigger idea not yet accomplished."

"You don't think Mr. Hallowell was mad?"

"He was mad, assuming that you are the standard of sanity. Otherwise, he was a great man. There'll be statues erected and pages of the book of fame devoted to the men who carry out his ideas."

"His death was certainly a great loss to his daughter," said Tetlow in his heaviest, most bourgeois manner.

"I said he was a great man," observed Norman. "I didn't say he was a great father. A great man is never a great father. It takes a small man to be a great father."

"At any rate, her having no parents or relatives doesn't matter, now that she has you," said Tetlow, his manner at once forced and constrained.

"Um," muttered Norman.

Said Tetlow: "Perhaps you misunderstood why I—I acted as I did about her, toward the last."

"It was of no importance," said Norman brusquely. "I wish to hear nothing about it."

"But I must explain, Fred. She piqued me by showing so plainly that she despised me. I must admit the truth, though I've got as much vanity as the next man, and don't like to admit it. She despised me, and it made me mad."

An expression of grim satire passed over Norman's face. Said he: "She despised me, too."

"Yes, she did," said Tetlow. "And both of us were certainly greatly her superiors—in every substantial way. It seemed to me most—most——"

"Most impertinent of her?" suggested Norman.

"Precisely. Most impertinent."

"Rather say, ignorant and small. My dear Tetlow, let me tell you something. Anybody, however insignificant, can be loved. To be loved means nothing, except possibly a hallucination in the brain of the lover. But to love—that's another matter. Only a great soul is capable of a great love."

"That is true," murmured Tetlow sentimentally, preening in a quiet, gentle way.

Said Norman sententiously: "You stopped loving. It was I that kept on."

Tetlow looked uncomfortable. "Yes—yes," he said. "But we were talking of her—of her not appreciating the love she got. And I was about to say—" Earnestly—"Fred, she's not to be blamed for her folly! She's very, very young—and has all the weaknesses and vanities of youth——"

"Here we are," interrupted Norman.

The hansom had stopped in Forty-second Street before the deserted but still brilliantly lighted entrances to the great hotel. Norman sprang out so lightly and surely that Tetlow wondered how it was possible for this to be the man who had been racketing and roistering day after day, night after night for nearly a week. He helped the heavy and awkward Tetlow to descend, said:

"You'll have to pay, Bill. I've got less than a dollar left. And I touched Gaskill for a hundred and fifty to-night. You can imagine how drunk he was, to let me have it. How they've been shying off from me these last few months!"

"And you want Galloway to come to you," thrust Tetlow, as he counted out the money.

"Don't go back and chew on that," laughed Norman. "It's settled." He took the money, gave it to the driver. "Thanks," he said to Tetlow. "I'll pay you to-morrow—that is, later to-day—when you send me another check."

"Why should you pay for my cab?" rejoined Tetlow.

"Because it's easier for me to make money than it is for you," replied Norman. "If you were in my position—the position I've been in for months—would anybody on earth give you three thousand dollars a month?"

Tetlow looked sour. His good nature was rubbing thin in spots.

"Don't lose your temper," laughed Norman. "I'm pounding away at you about my superiority, partly because I've been drinking, but chiefly for your own good—so that you'll realize I'm right and not mess things with Galloway."

They went up to Norman's suite. Norman tried to unlock the door, found it already unlocked. He turned the knob, threw the door wide for Tetlow to enter first. Then, over Tetlow's shoulder he saw on the marble-topped center table Dorothy's hat and jacket, the one she had worn away, the only one she had. He stared at them, then at Tetlow. A confused look in the fat, slow face made him say sharply:

"What does this mean, Tetlow?"

"Not so loud, Fred," said Tetlow, closing the door into the public hall. "She's in the bedroom—probably asleep. She's been here since yesterday."

"You brought her back?" demanded Norman.

"She wanted to come. I simply——"

Norman made a silencing gesture. Tetlow's faltering voice stopped short. Norman stood near the table, his hands deep in his trousers' pockets, his gaze fixed upon the hat and jacket. When Tetlow's agitation could bear the uncertainties of that silence no longer, he went on:

"Fred, you mustn't forget how young and inexperienced she is. She's been foolish, but nothing more. She's as pure as when she came into the world. And it's the truth that she wanted to come back. I saw it as soon as I began to talk with her."

"What are you chattering about?" said Norman fiercely. "Why did you meddle in my affairs? Why did you bring her back?"

"I knew she needed you," pleaded Tetlow. "Then, too—I was afraid—I knew how you acted before, and I thought you'd not get your gait again until you had her."

Norman gave a short sardonic laugh. "If you'd only stop trying to understand me!" he said.

Tetlow was utterly confused. "But, Fred, you don't realize—not all," he cried imploringly. "She discovered—she thinks, I believe—that is—she—she—that probably—that in a few months you'll be something more than a husband—and she something more than a wife—that you—that—you and she will be a father and a mother."

Tetlow's meaning slowly dawned on Norman. He seated himself in his favorite attitude, legs sprawled, fingers interlaced behind his head.

"Wasn't I right to bring her back—to tell her she needn't fear to come?" pleaded Tetlow.

Norman made no reply. After a brief silence he said: "Well, good night, old man. Come round to my office any time after ten." He rose and gave Tetlow his hand. "And arrange for Galloway whenever you like. Good night."

Tetlow hesitated. "Fred—you'll not be harsh to her?" he said.

Norman smiled—a satirical smile, yet exquisitely gentle. "If you only wouldn't try to understand me, Bill," he said.

When he was alone he sat lost in thought. At last he rang for a bell boy. And when the boy came, he said: "That door there"—indicating one in the opposite wall of the sitting room—"what does it lead into?"

"Another bedroom, sir."

"Unlock it, and tell them at the office I wish that room added to my suite."

As soon as the additional bedroom was at his disposal, he went in and began to undress. When he had taken off coat and waistcoat he paused to telephone to the office a call for eight o'clock. As he finished and hung up the receiver, a sound from the direction of the sitting room made him glance in there. On the threshold of the other bedroom stood his wife. She was in her nightgown; her hair, done in a single thick braid, hung down across her bosom. There was in the room and upon her childish loveliness the strange commingling of lights and shadows that falls when the electricity is still on and the early morning light is pushing in at the windows. They looked at each other in silence for some time. If she was frightened or in the least embarrassed she did not show it. She simply looked at him, while ever so slowly a smile dawned—a gleam in the eyes, a flutter round the lips, growing merrier and merrier. He did not smile. He continued to regard her gravely.

"I heard you and Mr. Tetlow come in," she said. "Then—you talked so long—I fell asleep again. I only this minute awakened."

"Well, now you can go to sleep again," said he.

"But I'm not a bit sleepy. What are you doing in that room?"

She advanced toward his door. He stood aside. She peeped in. She was so close to him that her nightgown brushed the bosom of his shirt. "Another bedroom!" she exclaimed. "Just like ours."

"I didn't wish to disturb you," said he, calm and grave.

"But you wouldn't have been disturbing me," protested she, leaning against the door frame, less than two feet away and directly facing him.

"I'll stay on here," said he.

She gazed at him with great puzzled eyes. "Aren't you glad I'm back?" she asked.

"Certainly," said he with a polite smile. "But I must get some sleep." And he moved away.

"You must let me tell you how I happened to go and why I came——"

"Please," he interrupted, looking at her with a piercing though not in the least unfriendly expression that made her grow suddenly pale and thoughtful. "I do not wish to hear about it—not now—not ever. Tetlow told me all that it's necessary for me to know. You have come to stay, I assume?"

"Yes—if"—her lip quivered—"if you'll let me."

"There can be no question of that," said he with the same polite gravity he had maintained throughout.

"You want me to leave you alone?"

"Please. I need sleep badly—and I've only three hours."

"You are—angry with me?"

He looked placidly into her lovely, swimming eyes. "Not in the least."

"But how can you help being? I acted dreadfully."

He smiled gently. "But you are back—and the incident is closed."

She looked down at the carpet, her fingers playing with her braid, twisting and untwisting its strands. He stood waiting to close the door. She said, without lifting her eyes—said in a quiet, expressionless way, "I have killed your love?"

"I'll not trouble you any more," evaded he. And he laid his hand significantly upon the knob.

"I don't understand," she murmured. Then, with a quick apologetic glance at him, "But I'm very inconsiderate. You want to sleep. Good night."

"Good night," said he, beginning to close the door.

She impulsively stood close before him, lifted her small white face, as if for a kiss. "Do you forgive me?" she asked. "I was foolish. I didn't understand—till I went back. Then—nothing was the same. And I knew I wasn't fitted for that life—and didn't really care for him—and——"

He kissed her on the brow. "Don't agitate yourself," said he. "And we will never speak of this again."

She shrank as if he had struck her. Her head drooped, and her shoulders. When she was clear of the door, he quietly closed it.



XIX

It was not many minutes after ten when Tetlow hurried into Norman's office. "Galloway's coming at eleven!" said he, with an air of triumph.

"So you mulled over what I said and decided that I was not altogether drunk?"

"I wasn't sure of that," replied Tetlow. "But I was afraid you'd be offended if I didn't try to get him. He gave me no trouble at all. As soon as I told him you'd be glad to see him at your office, he astounded me by saying he'd come."

"He and I have had dealings," said Norman. "He understood at once. I always know my way when I'm dealing with a big man. It's only the little people that are muddled and complex. I hope you'll not forget this lesson, Billy."

"I shan't," promised Tetlow.

"We are to be partners," pursued Norman. "We shall be intimately associated for years. You'll save me a vast amount of time and energy and yourself a vast amount of fuming and fretting, if you'll simply accept what I say, without discussion. When I want discussion I'll ask your advice."

"I'm afraid you don't think it's worth much," said Tetlow humbly, "and I guess it isn't."

"On the contrary, invaluable," declared Norman with flattering emphasis. "Where you lack and I excel is in decision and action. I'll often get you to tell me what ought to be done, and then I'll make you do it—which you'd never dare, by yourself."

At eleven sharp Galloway came, looking as nearly like a dangerous old eagle as a human being well could. Rapacious, merciless, tyrannical; a famous philanthropist. Stingy to pettiness; a giver away of millions. Rigidly honest, yet absolutely unscrupulous; faithful to the last letter of his given word, yet so treacherous where his sly mind could nose out a way to evade the spirit of his agreements that his name was a synonym for unfaithfulness. An assiduous and groveling snob, yet so militantly democratic that, unless his interest compelled, he would not employ any member of the "best families" in any important capacity. He seemed a bundle of contradictions. In fact he was profoundly consistent. That is to say, he steadily pursued in every thought and act the gratification of his two passions—wealth and power. He lost no seen opportunity, however shameful, to add to his fortune or to amuse himself with the human race, which he regarded with the unpitying contempt characteristic of every cold nature born or risen to success.

His theory of life—and it is the theory that explains most great financial successes, however they may pretend or believe—his theory of life was that he did not need friends because the friends of a strong man weaken and rob him, but that he did need enemies because he could grow rich and powerful destroying and despoiling them. To him friends suggested the birds living in a tree. They might make the tree more romantic to the unthinking observer; but they in fact ate its budding leaves and its fruit and rotted its bough joints with their filthy nests.

We Americans are probably nearest to children of any race in civilization. The peculiar conditions of life—their almost Arcadian simplicity—up to a generation or so ago, gave us a false training in the study of human nature. We believe what the good preacher, the novelist and the poet, all as ignorant of life as nursery books, tell us about the human heart. We fancy that in a social system modeled upon the cruel and immoral system of Nature, success is to the good and kind. Life is like the pious story in the Sunday-school library; evil is the exception and to practice the simple virtues is to tread with sure step the highway to riches and fame. This sort of ignorance is taught, is proclaimed, is apparently accepted throughout the world. Literature and the drama, representing life as it is dreamed by humanity, life as it perhaps may be some day, create an impression which defies the plain daily and hourly mockings of experience. Because weak and petty offenders are often punished, the universe is pictured as sternly enforcing the criminal codes enacted by priests or lawyers. But, while all the world half inclines to this agreeable mendacity about life, only in America of all civilization is the mendacity accepted as gospel, and suspicion about it frowned upon as the heresy of cynicism. So the Galloways prosper and are in high moral repute. Some day we shall learn that a social system which is merely a slavish copy of Nature's barbarous and wasteful sway of the survival of the toughest could be and ought to be improved upon by the intelligence of the human race. Some day we shall put Nature in its proper place as kindergarten teacher, and drop it from godship and erect enlightened human understanding instead. But that is a long way off. Meanwhile the Galloways will reign, and will assure us that they won their success by the Decalogue and the Golden Rule—and will be believed by all who seek to assure for themselves in advance almost certain failure at material success in the arena of action.

But they will not be believed by men of ambition, pushing resolutely for power and wealth. So Frederick Norman knew precisely what he was facing when Galloway's tall gaunt figure and face of the bird of prey appeared before him. Galloway had triumphed and was triumphing not through obedience to the Sunday sermons and the silly novels, poems, plays, and the nonsense chattered by the obscure multitudes whom the mighty few exploit, but through obedience to the conditions imposed by our social system. If he raised wages a little, it was in order that he might have excuse for raising prices a great deal. If he gave away millions, it was for his fame, and usually to quiet the scandal over some particularly wicked wholesale robbery. No, Galloway was not a witness to the might of altruistic virtue as a means to triumph. Charity and all the other forms of chicanery by which the many are defrauded and fooled by the few—those "virtues" he understood and practiced. But justice—humanity's ages-long dream that at last seems to glitter as a hope in the horizon of the future—justice—not legal justice, nor moral justice, but human justice—that idea would have seemed to him ridiculous, Utopian, something for the women and the children and the socialists.

Norman understood Galloway, and Galloway understood Norman. Galloway, with an old man's garrulity and a confirmed moral poseur's eagerness about appearances, began to unfold his virtuous reasons for the impending break with Burroughs—the industrial and financial war out of which he expected to come doubly rich and all but supreme. Midway he stopped.

"You are not listening," said he sharply to the young man.

Their eyes met. Norman's eyes were twinkling. "No," said he, "I am waiting."

There was the suggestion of an answering gleam of sardonic humor in Galloway's cold gray eyes. "Waiting for what?"

"For you to finish with me as father confessor, to begin with me as lawyer. Pray don't hurry. My time is yours." This with a fine air of utmost suavity and respect.

In fact, while Galloway was doddering on and on with his fake moralities, Norman was thinking of his own affairs, was wondering at his indifference about Dorothy. The night before—the few hours before—when he had dealt with her so calmly, he, even as he talked and listened and acted, had assumed that the enormous amount of liquor he had been consuming was in some way responsible. He had said to himself, "When I am over this, when I have had sleep and return to the normal, I shall again be the foolish slave of all these months." But here he was, sober, having taken only enough whisky to prevent an abrupt let-down—here he was viewing her in the same tranquil light. No longer all his life; no longer even dominant; only a part of life—and he was by no means certain that she was an important part.

How explain the mystery of the change? Because she had voluntarily come back, did he feel that she was no longer baffling but was definitely his? Or had passion running madly on and on dropped—perhaps not dead, but almost dead—from sheer exhaustion?—was it weary of racing and content to saunter and to stroll? . . . He could not account for the change. He only knew that he who had been quite mad was now quite sane. . . . Would he like to be rid of her? Did he regret that they were tied together? No, curiously enough. It was high time he got married; she would do as well as another. She had beauty, youth, amiability, physical charm for him. There was advantage in the fact that her inferiority to him, her dependence on him, would enable him to take as much or as little of her as he might feel disposed, to treat her as the warrior must ever treat his entire domestic establishment from wife down to pet dog or cat or baby. . . . No, he did not regret Josephine. He could see now disadvantages greater than her advantages. All of value she would have brought him he could get for himself, and she would have been troublesome—exacting, disputing his sway, demanding full value or more in return for the love she was giving with such exalted notions of its worth.

"You are married?" Galloway suddenly said, interrupting his own speech and Norman's thought.

"Yes," said Norman.

"Just married, I believe?"

"Just."

Young and old, high and low, successful and failed, we are a race of advice-givers. As for Galloway, he was not one to neglect that showy form of inexpensive benevolence. "Have plenty of children," said he.

"And keep your family in the country till they grow up. Town's no place for women. They go crazy. Women—and most men—have no initiative. They think only about whatever's thrust at them. In the country it'll be their children and domestic things. In town it'll be getting and spending money."

Norman was struck by this. "I think I'll take your advice," said he.

"A man's home ought to be a retreat, not an inn. We are humoring the women too much. They are forgetting who earns what they spend in exhibiting themselves. If a woman wants that sort of thing, let her get out and earn it. Why should she expect it from the man who has undertaken her support because he wanted a wife to take care of his house and a mother for his children? If a woman doesn't like the job, all right. But if she takes it and accepts its pay, why, she should do its work."

"Flawless logic," said Norman.

"When I hire a man to work, he doesn't expect to idle about showing other people how handsome he is in the clothes my money pays for. Not that marriage is altogether a business—not at all. But, my dear sir—" And Galloway brought his cane down with the emphasis of one speaking from a heart full of bitter experience—"unless it is a business at bottom, organized and conducted on sound business principles, there's no sentiment either. We are human beings—and that means we are first of all business beings, engaged in getting food, clothing, shelter. No sentiment—no sentiment, sir, is worth while that isn't firmly grounded. It's a house without a foundation. It's a steeple without a church under it."

Norman looked at the old man with calm penetrating eyes. "I shall conduct my married life on a sound, business basis, or not at all," said he.

"We'll see," said Galloway. "That's what I said forty years ago—No, I didn't. I had no sense about such matters then. In my youth the men knew nothing about the woman question." He smiled grimly. "I see signs that they are learning."

Then as abruptly as he had left the affairs he was there to discuss he returned to them. His mind seemed to have freed itself of all irrelevancy and superfluity, as a stream often runs from a faucet with much spluttering and rather muddy at first, then steadies and clears. Norman gave him the attention one can get only from a good mind that is interested in the subject and understands it thoroughly. Such attention not merely receives the words and ideas as they fall from the mouth of him who utters them, but also seems to draw them by a sort of suction faster and in greater abundance. It was this peculiar ability of giving attention, as much as any other one quality, that gave Norman's clients their confidence in him. Galloway, than whom no man was shrewder judge of men, showed in his gratified eyes and voice, long before he had finished, how strongly his conviction of Norman's high ability was confirmed.

When Galloway ended, Norman rapidly and in clear and simple sentences summarized what Galloway had said. "That is right?" he asked.

"Precisely," said Galloway admiringly. "What a gift of clear statement you have, young man!"

"It has won me my place," said Norman. "As to your campaign, I can tell you now that the legal part of it can be arranged. That is what the law is for—to enable a man to do whatever he wants. The penalties are for those who have the stupidity to try to do things in an unlawful way."

Galloway laughed. "I had heard that they were for doing unlawful things."

"Nothing is unlawful," said Norman, "except in method."

"That's an interesting view of courts of justice."

"But we have no courts of justice. We have only courts of law."

Galloway threw back his head and laughed till the tears rolled down his cheeks. "What a gift for clear statement!" he cried.

Norman beamed appreciation of a compliment so flattering. But he went back to business. "As I was saying, you can do what you want to do. You wish me to show you how. In our modern way of doing things, the relation of lawyer and client has somewhat changed. To illustrate by this case, you are the bear with the taste for honey and the strength to rob the bees. I am the honey bird—that is, the modern lawyer—who can show you the way to the hive. Most of the honey birds—as yet—are content with a very small share of the honey—whatever the bear happens to be unable to find room for. But I—" Norman's eyes danced and his strong mouth curved in a charming smile—"I am a honey bird with a bear appetite."

Galloway was sitting up stiffly. "I don't quite follow you, sir," he said.

"Yet I am plain enough. My ability at clear statement has not deserted me. If I show you the way through the tangled forest of the law to this hive you scent—I must be a partner in the honey."

Galloway rose. "Your conceptions of your profession—and of me, I may say—are not attractive. I have always been, and am willing and anxious to pay liberally—more liberally than anyone else—for legal advice. But my business, sir, is my own."

Norman rose, his expression one of apology and polite disappointment. "I see I misunderstood your purpose in coming to me," said he. "Let us take no more of each other's time."

"And what did you think my object was in coming?" demanded Galloway.

"To get from me what you realized you could get nowhere else—which meant, as an old experienced trader like you must have known, that you were ready to pay my price. Of course, if you can get elsewhere the assistance you need, why, you would be most unwise to come to me."

Galloway moved toward the door. "And you might have charged practically any fee you wished," said he, laughing satirically. "Young man, you are making the mistake that is ruining this generation. You wish to get rich all at once. You are not willing to be patient and to work and to build your fortune solidly and slowly."

Norman smiled as at a good joke. "What an asset to you strong men has been the vague hope in the minds of the masses that each poor devil of them will have his turn to loot and grow rich. I used to think ignorance kept the present system going. But I have discovered that it is that sly, silly, corrupt hope. But, sir, it does not catch me. I shall not work for you and the other strong men, and patiently wait my turn that would never come. My time is now."

"You threaten me!" cried Galloway furiously.

"Threaten you?" exclaimed Norman, amazed.

"You think, because I have given you, my lawyer, my secrets, that you can compel me——"

With an imperious gesture Norman stopped him. "Good day, sir," he said haughtily. "Your secrets are safe with me. I am a lawyer, not a financier."

Galloway was disconcerted. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Norman," he said. "I misunderstood you. I thought I heard you say in effect that you purposed to be rich, and that you purposed to compel me to make you so."

"So I did," replied Norman. "But not by the methods you financiers are so adept at using. Not by high-class blackmail and blackjacking. I meant that my abilities were such that you and your fellow masters of modern society would be compelled to employ me on my own terms. A few moments ago you outlined to me a plan. It may be you can find other lawyers competent to steer it through the channel of the law. I doubt it. I may exaggerate my value. But—" He smiled pleasantly—"I don't think so."

In this modern world of ours there is no more delicate or more important branch of the art of material success than learning to play one's own tune on the trumpets of fame. To those who watch careers intelligently and critically, and not merely with mouth agape and ears awag for whatever sounds the winds of credulity bear, there is keen interest in noting how differently this high art is practiced by the fame-seekers—how well some modest heroes disguise themselves before essaying the trumpet, how timidly some play, how brazenly others. It is an art of infinite variety. How many there are who can echo Shakespeare's sad lament, through Hamlet's lips—"I lack advancement!" Those are they who have wholly neglected, as did Shakespeare, this essential part of the art of advancement—Shakespeare, who lived almost obscure and was all but forgotten for two centuries after his death.

Norman, frankly seeking mere material success, and with the colossal egotism that disdains egotism and shrugs at the danger of being accused of it—Norman did not hesitate to proclaim his own merits. He reasoned that he had the wares, that crying them would attract attention to them, that he whose attention was attracted, if he were a judge of wares and a seeker of the best, would see that the Norman wares were indeed as Norman cried them. At first blush Galloway was amused by Norman's candid self-esteem. But he had often heard of Norman's conceit—and in a long and busy life he had not seen an able man who was unaware of his ability; any more than he had seen a pretty woman unaware of her prettiness. So, at second blush, Galloway was tempted by Norman's calm strong blast upon his own trumpet to look again at the wares.

"I always have had a high opinion of you, young man," said he, with laughing eyes. "Almost as high an opinion as you have of yourself. Think over the legal side of my plan. When you get your thoughts in order, let me know—and make me a proposition as to your own share. Does that satisfy you?"

"It's all I ask," said Norman.

And they parted on the friendliest terms—and Norman knew that his fortune was assured, if Galloway lived another nine months. When he was alone, the sweat burst out upon him and, trembling from head to foot, he locked his door and flung himself at full length upon the rug. It was half an hour before the fit of silent hysterical reaction passed sufficiently to let him gather strength to rise. He tottered to his desk chair, and sat with his head buried in his arms upon the desk. After a while the telephone at his side rang insistently. He took the receiver in a hand he could not steady.

"Yes?" he called.

"It's Tetlow. How'd you come out?"

"Oh—" He paused to stiffen his throat to attack the words naturally—"all right. We go ahead."

"With G.?"

"Certainly. But keep quiet. Don't let him know you've heard, if you see him or he sends for you. Remember, it's in my hands entirely."

"Trust me." Tetlow's voice, suppressed and jubilant, suggested a fat, hoarse rooster trying to finish a crow before a coming stone from a farm boy reaches him. "It seems natural and easy to you, old man. But I'm about crazy with joy. I'll come right over."

"No. I'm going home."

"Can't I see you there?"

"No. I've other matters to attend to. Come about lunch time to-morrow—to the office, here."

"All right," said Tetlow disappointedly, and Norman rang off.



XX

In the faces of men who have dominion of whatever kind over their fellow men—be it the brutal rule of the prize fighter over his gang or the apparently gentle sway of the apparently meek bishop over his loving flock—in the faces of all men of power there is a dangerous look. They may never lose their tempers. They may never lift their voices. They may be ever suave and civil. The dangerous look is there—and the danger behind it. And the sense of that look and of its cause has a certain restraining effect upon all but the hopelessly impudent or solidly dense. Norman was one of the men without fits of temper. In his moments of irritation, no one ever felt that a storm of violent language might be impending. But the danger signal flaunted from his face. Danger of what? No one could have said. Most people would have laughed at the idea that so even tempered a man, pleased with himself and with the world, could ever be dangerous. Yet everyone had instinctively respected that danger flag—until Dorothy.

Perhaps it had struck for her—had really not been there when she looked at him. Perhaps she had been too inexperienced, perhaps too self-centered, to see it. Perhaps she had never before seen his face in an hour of weariness and relaxation—when the true character, the dominating and essential trait or traits, shows nakedly upon the surface, making the weak man or woman look pitiful, the strong man or woman formidable.

However that may be, when he walked into the sitting room, greeted her placidly and kissed her on the brow, she, glancing uncertainly up at him, saw that danger signal for the first time. She studied his face, her own face wearing her expression of the puzzled child. No, not quite that expression as it always had been theretofore, but a modified form of it. To any self-centered, self-absorbed woman—there comes in her married life, unless she be married to a booby, a time, an hour, a moment even—for it can be narrowed down to a point—when she takes her first seeing look at the man upon whom she is dependent for protection, whether spiritual or material, or both. In her egotism and vanity she has been regarding him as her property. Suddenly, and usually disagreeably, it has been revealed to her that she is his property. That hour had come for Dorothy Norman. And she was looking at her husband, was wondering who and what he was.

"You've had your lunch?" he said.

"No," replied she.

"You have been out for the air?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"You didn't tell me what to do."

He smiled good humoredly. "Oh, you had no money."

"Yes—a little. But I—" She halted.

"Yes?"

"You hadn't told me what to do," she repeated, as if on mature thought that sentence expressed the whole matter.

He felt in his pockets, found a small roll of bills. He laid twenty-five dollars on the table. "I'll keep thirty," he said, "as I shan't have any more till I see Tetlow to-morrow. Now, fly out and amuse yourself. I'm going to sleep. Don't wake me till you're ready for dinner."

And he went into his bedroom and closed the door. When he awoke, he saw that it was dark outside, and some note in the din of street noises from far below made him feel that it was late. He wrapped a bathrobe round him, opened the door into the sitting room. It was dark.

"Dorothy!" he called.

"Yes," promptly responded the small quiet voice, so near that he started back.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, and switched on the light. "There you are—by the window. What were you doing, in the dark?"

She was dressed precisely as when he had last seen her. She was sitting with her hands listless in her lap and her face a moving and beautiful expression of melancholy dreams. On the table were the bills—where he had laid them. "You've been out?" he said.

"No," she replied.

"Why not?"

"I've been—waiting."

"For what?" laughed he.

"For—I don't know," she replied. "Just waiting."

"But there's nothing to wait for."

She looked at him interrogatively. "No—I suppose not," she said.

He went back into his room and glanced at his watch. "Eleven o'clock!" he cried. "Why didn't you wake me? You must be nearly starved."

"Yes, I am hungry," said she.

Her patient, passive resignation irritated him. "I'm ravenous," he said. "I'll dress—and you dress, too. We'll go downstairs to supper."

When he reappeared in the sitting room, in a dinner jacket, she was again seated near the window, hands listless in her lap and eyes gazing dreamily into vacancy. But she was now dressed in the black chiffon and the big black hat. He laughed. "You are prompt and obedient," said he. "Nothing like hunger to subdue."

A faint flush tinged her lovely skin; the look of the child that has been struck appeared in her eyes.

He cast about in his mind for the explanation. Did she think he meant it was need that had brought her meekly back to him? That was true enough, but he had not intended to hint it. In high good humor because he was so delightfully hungry and was about to get food, he cried: "Do cheer up! There's nothing to be sad about—nothing."

She lifted her large eyes and gazed at him timidly. "What are you going to do with me?"

"Take you downstairs and feed you."

"But I mean—afterward?"

"Bring—or send—you up here to go to bed."

"Are you going away?"

"Where?"

"Away from me."

He looked at her with amused eyes. She was exquisitely lovely; never had he seen her lovelier. It delighted him to note her charms—the charms that had enslaved him—not a single charm missing—and to feel that he was no longer their slave, was his own master again.

A strange look swept across her uncannily mobile face—a look of wonder, of awe, of fear, of dread. "You don't even like me any more," she said in her colorless way.

"What have I done to make you think I dislike you?" said he pleasantly.

She gazed down in silence.

"You need have no fear," said he. "You are my wife. You will be well taken care of, and you will not be annoyed. What more can I say?"

"Thank you," she murmured.

He winced. She had made him feel like an unpleasant cross between an alms-giver and a bully. "Now," said he, with forced but resolute cheerfulness, "we will eat, drink and be merry."

On the way down in the elevator he watched her out of the corner of his eye. When they reached the hall leading to the supper room he touched her arm and halted her. "My dear," said he in the pleasant voice which yet somehow never failed to secure attention and obedience, "there will be some of my acquaintances in there at supper. I don't want them to see you with that whipped dog look. There's no occasion for it."

Her lip trembled. "I'll do my best," said she.

"Let's see you smile," laughed he. "You have often shown me that you know the woman's trick of wearing what feelings you choose on the outside. So don't pretend that you've got to look as if you were about to be hung for a crime you didn't commit. There!—that's better."

And indeed to a casual glance she looked the happy bride trying—not very successfully—to seem used to her husband and her new status.

"Hold it!" he urged gayly. "I've no fancy for leading round a lovely martyr in chains. Especially as you're about as healthy and well placed a person as I know. And you'll feel as well as you look when you've had something to eat."

Whether it was obedience or the result of a decision to drop an unprofitable pose he could not tell, but as soon as they were seated and she had a bill of fare before her and was reading it, her expression of happiness lost its last suggestion of being forced. "Crab meat!" she said. "I love it!"

"Two portions of crab meat," he said to the waiter with pad and pencil at attention.

"Oh, I don't want that much," she protested.

"You forget that I am hungry," rejoined he. "And when I am hungry, the price of food begins to go up." He addressed himself to the waiter: "After that a broiled grouse—with plenty of hominy—and grilled sweet potatoes—and a salad of endive and hothouse tomatoes—and I know the difference between hothouse tomatoes and the other kinds. Next—some cheese—Coullomieres—yes, you have it—I got the steward to get it—and toasted crackers—the round kind, not the square—and not the hard ones that unsettle the teeth—and—what kind of ice, my dear?—or would you prefer a fresh peach flambee?"

"Yes—I think so," said Dorothy.

"You hear, waiter?—and a bottle of—there's the head waiter—ask him—he knows the champagne I like."

As Norman had talked, in the pleasant, insistent voice, the waiter had roused from the air of mindless, mechanical sloth characteristic of the New York waiter—unless and until a fee below his high expectation is offered. When he said the final "very good, sir," it was with the accent of real intelligence.

Dorothy was smiling, with the amusement of youth and inexperience. "What a lot of trouble you took about it," said she.

He shrugged his shoulders. "Anything worth doing at all is worth taking trouble about. You will see. We shall get results. The supper will be the best this house can put together."

"You can have anything you want in this world, if you only can pay for it," said she.

"That's what most people think," replied he. "But the truth is, the paying is only a small part of the art of getting what one wants."

She glanced nervously at him. "I'm beginning to realize that I'm dreadfully inexperienced," said she.

"There's nothing discouraging in that," said he. "Lack of experience can be remedied. But not lack of judgment. It takes the great gift of judgment to enable one to profit by mistakes, to decide what is the real lesson of an experience."

"I'm afraid I haven't any judgment, either," confessed she.

"That remains to be seen."

She hesitated—ventured: "What do you think is my worst fault?"

He shook his head laughingly. "We are going to have a happy supper."

"Do you think I am very vain?" persisted she.

"Who's been telling you so?"

"Mr. Tetlow. He gave me an awful talking to, just before I—" She paused at the edge of the forbidden ground. "He didn't spare me," she went on. "He said I was a vain, self-centered little fool."

"And what did you say?"

"I was very angry. I told him he had no right to accuse me of that. I reminded him that he had never heard me say a word about myself."

"And did he say that the vainest people were just that way—never speaking of themselves, never thinking of anything else?"

"Oh, he told you what he said," cried she.

"No," laughed he.

She reddened. "You think I'm vain?"

He made a good-humoredly satirical little bow. "I think you are charming," said he. "It would be a waste of time to look at or to think of anyone else when oneself is the most charming and interesting person in the world. Still—" He put into his face and voice a suggestion of gravity that caught her utmost attention—"if one is to get anywhere, is to win consideration from others—and happiness for oneself—one simply must do a little thinking about others—occasionally."

Her eyes lowered. A faint color tinged her cheeks.

"The reason most of us are so uncomfortable—downright unhappy most of the time—is that we never really take our thoughts off our precious fascinating selves. The result is that some day we find that the liking—and friendship—and love—of those around us has limits—and we are left severely alone. Of course, if one has a great deal of money, one can buy excellent imitations of liking and friendship and even love—I ought to say, especially love——"

The color flamed in her face.

"But," he went on, "if one is in modest circumstances or poor, one has to take care."

"Or dependent," she said, with one of those unexpected flashes of subtle intelligence that so complicated the study of her character. He had been talking to amuse himself rather than with any idea of her understanding. Her sudden bright color and her two words—"or dependent"—roused him to see that she thought he was deliberately giving her a savage lecture from the cover of general remarks. "With the vanity of the typical woman," he said to himself, "she always imagines she is the subject of everyone's thought and talk."

"Or dependent," said he to her, easily. "I wasn't thinking of you, but yours is a case in point. Come, now—nothing to look blue about! Here's something to eat. No, it's for the next table."

"You won't let me explain," she protested, between the prudence of reproach and the candor of anger.

"There's nothing to explain," replied he. "Don't bother about the mistakes of yesterday. Remember them—yes. If one has a good memory, to forget is impossible—not to say unwise. But there ought to be no more heat or sting in the memory of past mistakes than in the memory of last year's mosquito bites."

The first course of the supper arrived. Her nervousness vanished, and he got far away from the neighborhood of the subjects that, even in remotest hint, could not but agitate her. And as the food and the wine asserted their pacific and beatific sway, she and he steadily moved into better and better humor with each other. Her beauty grew until it had him thinking that never, not in the most spiritual feminine conceptions of the classic painters, had he seen a loveliness more ethereal. Her skin was so exquisite, the coloring of her hair and eyes and of her lips was so delicately fine that it gave her the fragility of things bordering upon the supernal—of rare exotics, of sunset and moonbeam effects. No, he had been under no spell of illusion as to her beauty. It was a reality—the more fascinating because it waxed and waned not with regularity of period but capriciously.

He began to look round furtively, to see what effect this wife of his was producing on others. These last few months, through prudence as much as through pride, he had been cultivating the habit of ignoring his surroundings; he would not invite cold salutations or obvious avoidance of speaking. He now discovered many of his former associates—and his vanity dilated as he noted how intensely they were interested in his wife.

Some men of ability have that purest form of egotism which makes one profoundly content with himself, genuinely indifferent to the approval or the disapproval of others. Norman's vanity had a certain amount of alloy. He genuinely disdained his fellow-men—their timidity, their hypocrisy, their servility, their limited range of ideas. He was indifferent to the verge of insensibility as to their adverse criticism. But at the same time it was necessary to his happiness that he get from them evidences of their admiration and envy. With that amusing hypocrisy which tinges all human nature, he concealed from himself the satisfaction, the joy even, he got out of the showy side of his position. And no feature of his infatuation for Dorothy surprised him so much as the way it rode rough shod and reckless over his snobbishness.

With the fading of infatuation had come many reflections upon the practical aspects of what he had done. It pleased him with himself to find that, in this first test, he had not the least regret, but on the contrary a genuine pride in the courageous independence he had shown—another and strong support to his conviction of his superiority to his fellow-men. He might be somewhat snobbish—who was not?—who else in his New York was less than supersaturated with snobbishness? But snobbishness, the determining quality in the natures of all the women and most of the men he knew, had shown itself one of the incidental qualities in his own nature. After all, reflected he, it took a man, a good deal of a man, to do what he had done, and not to regret it, even in the hour of disillusionment. And it must be said for this egotistic self-approval of his that like all his judgments there was sound merit of truth in it. The vanity of the nincompoop is ridiculous. The vanity of the man of ability is amusing and no doubt due to a defective point of view upon the proportions of the universe; but it is not without excuse, and those who laugh might do well to discriminate even as they guffaw.

Looking discreetly about, Norman was suddenly confronted by the face of Josephine Burroughs, only two tables away.

Until their eyes squarely met he did not know she was there, or even in America. Before he could make a beginning of glancing away, she gave him her sweetest smile and her friendliest bow. And Dorothy, looking to see to whom he was speaking, was astonished to receive the same radiance of cordiality. Norman was pleased at the way his wife dealt with the situation. She returned both bow and smile in her own quiet, slightly reserved way of gentle dignity.

"Who was that, speaking?" asked she.

"Miss Burroughs. You must remember her."

He noted it as characteristic that she said, quite sincerely: "Oh, so it is. I didn't remember her. That is the girl you were engaged to."

"Yes—'the nice girl uptown,'" said he.

"I didn't like her," said Dorothy, with evident small interest in the subject. "She was vain."

"You mean you didn't like her way of being vain," suggested Norman. "Everyone is vain; so, if we disliked for vanity we should dislike everyone."

"Yes, it was her way. And just now she spoke to us both, as if she were doing us a favor."

"Gracious, it's called," said he. "What of it? It does us no harm and gives her about the only happiness she's got."



Norman, without seeming to do so, noted the rest of the Burroughs party. At Josephine's right sat a handsome young foreigner, and it took small experience of the world to discover that he was paying court to her, and that she was pleased and flattered. Norman asked the waiter who he was, and learned that he came from the waiter's own province of France, was the Duc de Valdome. At first glance Norman had thought him distinguished. Afterward he discriminated. There are several kinds or degrees of distinction. There is distinction of race, of class, of family, of dress, of person. As Frenchman, as aristocrat, as a scion of the ancient family of Valdome, as a specimen of tailoring and valeting, Miss Burroughs's young man was distinguished. But in his own proper person he was rather insignificant. The others at the table were Americans. Following Miss Burroughs's cue, they sought an opportunity to speak friendlily to Norman—and he gave it them. His acknowledgment of those effusive salutations was polite but restrained.

"They are friends of yours?" said Dorothy.

"They were," said he. "And they may be again—when they are friends of ours."

"I'm not very good at making friends," she warned him. "I don't like many people." This time her unconscious and profound egotism pleased him. Evidently it did not occur to her that she should be eager to be friends with those people on any terms, that the only question was whether they would receive her.

She asked: "Why was Miss—Miss Burroughs so friendly?"

"Why shouldn't she be?"

"But I thought you threw her over."

He winced at this crude way of putting it. "On the contrary, she threw me over."

Dorothy laughed incredulously. "I know better. Mr. Tetlow told me."

"She threw me over," repeated he coldly. "Tetlow was repeating malicious and ignorant gossip."

Dorothy laughed again—it was her second glass of champagne. "You say that because it's the honorable thing to say. But I know."

"I say it because it's true," said he.

He spoke quietly, but if she had drunk many more than two glasses of an unaccustomed and heady liquor she would have felt his intonation. She paled and shrank and her slim white fingers fluttered nervously at the collar of her dress. "I was only joking," she murmured.

He laughed good-naturedly. "Don't look as if I had given you a whipping," said he. "Surely you're not afraid of me."

She glanced shyly at him, a smile dancing in her eyes and upon her lips. "Yes," she said. And after a pause she added: "I didn't used to be. But that was because I didn't know you—or much of anything." The smile irradiated her whole face. "You used to be afraid of me. But you aren't, any more."

"No," said he, looking straight at her. "No, I'm not."

"I always told you you were mistaken in what you thought of me. I really don't amount to much. A man as serious and as important as you are couldn't—couldn't care about me."

"It's true you don't amount to much, as yet," said he. "And if you never do amount to much, you'd be no less than most women and most men. But I've an idea—at times—that you could amount to something."

He saw that he had wounded her vanity, that her protestations of humility were precisely what he had suspected. He laughed at her: "I see you thought I'd contradict you. But I can't afford to be so amiable now. And the first thing you've got to get rid of is the part of your vanity that prevents you from growing. Vanity of belief in one's possibilities is fine. No one gets anywhere without it. But vanity of belief in one's present perfection—no one but a god could afford that luxury."

Observing her closely he was amused—and pleased—to note that she was struggling to compose herself to endure his candors as a necessary part of the duties and obligations she had taken on herself when she gave up and returned to him.

"What you thought of me used to be the important thing in our relations," he went on, in his way of raillery that took all or nearly all the sting out of what he said, but none of its strength. "Now, the important thing is what I think of you. You are much younger than I, especially in experience. You are going to school to life with me as teacher. You'll dislike the teacher for the severity of the school. That isn't just, but it's natural—perhaps inevitable. And please—my dear—when you are bitterest over what you have to put up with from me—don't forget what I have to put up with from you."

She was fighting bravely against angry tears. As for him, he had suddenly become indifferent to what the people around them might be thinking. With all his old arrogance come back in full flood, he was feeling that he would live his own life in his own way and that those who didn't approve—yes, including Dorothy—might do as they saw fit. She said:

"I don't blame you for regretting that you didn't marry Miss Burroughs."

"But I don't regret it," replied he. "On the contrary, I'm glad."

She glanced hopefully at him. But the hopeful expression faded as he went on:

"Whether or not I made a mistake in marrying you, I certainly had an escape from disaster when she decided she preferred a foreigner and a title. There's a good sensible reason why so many girls of her class—more and more all the time—marry abroad. They are not fit to be the wives of hard-working American husbands. In fact I've about reached the conclusion that of the girls growing up nowdays very few in any class are fit to be American wives. They're not big enough. They're too coarse and crude in their tastes. They're only fit for the shallow, showy sort of thing—and the European aristocracy is their hope—and their place."

Her small face had a fascinating expression of a child trying to understand things far beyond its depth. He was interested in his own thoughts, however, and went on—for, if he had been in the habit of stopping when his hearers failed to understand, or when they misunderstood, either he would have been silent most of the time in company or his conversation would have been as petty and narrow and devoid of originality or imagination as is the mentality of most human beings—as is the talk and reading that impress them as interesting—and profound!

"The American man of the more ambitious sort," he went on, "either has to live practically if not physically apart from his wife or else has to educate some not too difficult woman to be his wife."

She understood that. "You are really going to educate me?" she said, with an arch smile. Now that Norman had her attention, now that she was centering upon him instead of upon herself, she was interested in him, and in what he said, whether she understood it or not, whether it pleased her vanity or wounded it. The intellects of women work to an unsuspected extent only through the sex charm. Their appreciations of books, of art, of men are dependant, often in the most curious indirect ways, upon the fact that the author, the artist, the politician or what not is betrousered. Thus, Dorothy was patient, respectful, attentive, was not offended by Norman's didactic way of giving her the lessons in life. Her smile was happy as well as coquettish, as she asked him to educate her.

He returned her smile. "That depends," answered he.

"You're not sure I'm worth the trouble?"

"You may put it that way, if you like. But I'd say, rather, I'm not sure I can spare the time—and you're not sure you care to fit yourself for the place."

"Oh, but I do!" cried she.

"We'll see—in a few weeks or months," replied he.

The Burroughs party were rising. Josephine had choice of two ways to the door. She chose the one that took her past Norman and his bride. She advanced, beaming. Norman rose, took her extended hand. Said she:

"So glad to see you." Then, turning the radiant smile upon Dorothy, "And is this your wife? Is this the pretty little typewriter girl?"

Dorothy nodded—a charming, ingenuous bend of the head. Norman felt a thrill of pride in her, so beautifully unconscious of the treacherous attempt at insult. It particularly delighted him that she had not made the mistake of rising to return Josephine's greeting but had remained seated. Surely this wife of his had the right instincts that never fail to cause right manners. For Josephine's benefit, he gazed down at Dorothy with the proudest, fondest eyes. "Yes—this is she," said he. "Can you blame me?"

Josephine paled and winced visibly, as if the blow she had aimed at him had, after glancing off harmlessly, returned to crush her. She touched Dorothy's proffered hand, murmured a few stammering phrases of vague compliment, rejoined her friends. Said Dorothy, when she and Norman were settled again:

"I shall never like her. Nor she me."

"But you do like this cheese? Waiter, another bottle of that same."

"Why did she put you in such a good humor?" inquired his wife.

"It wasn't she. It was you!" replied he. But he refused to explain.



XXI

Galloway accepted Norman's terms. He would probably have accepted terms far less easy. But Norman as yet knew with the thoroughness which must precede intelligent plan and action only the legal side of financial operations; he had been as indifferent to the commercial side as a pilot to the value of the cargo in the ship he engages to steer clear of shoals and rocks. So with the prudence of the sagacious man's audacities he contented himself with a share of this first venture that would simply make a comfortable foundation for the fortune he purposed to build. As the venture could not fail outright, even should Galloway die, he rented a largish place at Hempstead, with the privilege of purchase, and installed his wife and himself with a dozen servants and a housekeeper.

"This housekeeper, this Mrs. Lowell," said he to Dorothy, "is a good enough person as housekeepers go. But you will have to look sharply after her."

Dorothy seemed to fade and shrink within herself, which was her way of confessing lack of courage and fitness to face a situation: "I don't know anything about those things," she confessed.

"I understand perfectly," said he. "But you learned something at the place in Jersey City—quite enough for the start. Really, all you need to know just now is whether the place is clean or not, and whether the food comes on the table in proper condition. The rest you'll pick up gradually."

"I hope so," said she, looking doubtful and helpless; these new magnitudes were appalling, especially now that she was beginning to get a point of view upon life.

"At any rate, don't bother me for these few next months," said he. "I'm going to be very busy—shall leave early in the morning and not be back until near dinner time—if I come at all. No, you'll not be annoyed by me. You'll be absolute mistress of your time."

She tried to look as if this contented her. But he could not have failed to see how dissatisfied and disquieted she really was. He had the best of reasons for thinking that she was living under the same roof with him only because she preferred the roof he could provide to such a one as she could provide for herself whether by her own earnings or by marrying a man more to her liking personally. Yet here she was, piqued and depressed because of his indifference—because he was not thrusting upon her gallantries she would tolerate only through prudence!

"You will be lonely at times, I'm afraid," said he. "But I can't provide friends or even acquaintances for you for several months—until my affairs are in better order and my sister and her husband come back from Europe."

"Oh, I shan't be lonely," cried she. "I've never cared for people."

"You've your books, and your music—and riding—and shopping trips to town—and the house and grounds to look after."

"Yes—and my dreams," said she hopefully, her eyes suggesting the dusky star depths.

"Oh—the dreams. You'll have little time for them," said he drily. "And little inclination, I imagine, as you wake up to the sense of how much there is to be learned. Dreaming is the pastime of people who haven't the intelligence or the energy to accomplish anything. If you wish to please me—and you do—don't you?"

"Yes," she murmured. She forced her rebellious lips to the laconic assent. She drooped the lids over her rebellious eyes, lest he should detect her wounded feelings and her resentment.

"I assumed so," said he, with a secret smile. "Well, if you wish to please me, you'll give your time to practical things—things that'll make you more interesting and make us both more comfortable. It was all very well to dream, while you had little to do and small opportunity. But now—Try to cut it out."

It is painful to an American girl of any class to find that she has to earn her position as wife. The current theory, a tradition from an early and woman-revering day, is that the girl has done her share and more when she has consented to the suit of the ardent male and has intrusted her priceless charms to his exclusive keeping. According to that same theory, it is the husband who must earn his position—must continue to earn it. He is a humble creature, honored by the presence of a wonderful being, a cross between a queen and a goddess. He cannot do enough to show his gratitude. Perhaps—but only perhaps—had Norman married Josephine Burroughs, he might have assented, after a fashion, to this idea of the relations of the man and the woman. No doubt, had he remained under the spell of Dorothy's mystery and beauty, he would have felt and acted the slave he had made of himself at the outset. But in the circumstances he was looking at their prospective life together with sane eyes. And so she had, in addition to all her other reasons for heartache, a sense that she, the goddess-queen, the American woman, with the birthright of dominion over the male, was being cheated, humbled, degraded.

At first he saw that this sense of being wronged made it impossible for her to do anything at all toward educating herself for her position. But time brought about the change he had hoped for. A few weeks, and she began to cheer up, almost in spite of herself. What was the use in sulking or sighing or in self-pitying, when it brought only unhappiness to oneself? The coarse and brutal male in the case was either unaware or indifferent. There was no one and no place to fly to—unless she wished to be much worse off than her darkest mood of self-pity represented her to her sorrowing self. The housekeeper, Mrs. Lowell, was a "broken down gentlewoman" who had been chastened by misfortune into a wholesome state of practical good sense about the relative values of the real and the romantic. Mrs. Lowell diagnosed the case of the young wife—as Norman had shrewdly guessed she would—and was soon adroitly showing her the many advantages of her lot. Before they had been three months at Hempstead, Dorothy had discovered that she, in fact, was without a single ground for serious complaint. She had a husband who was generous about money, and left her as absolutely alone as if he were mere occasional visitor at the house. She had her living—and such a living!—she had plenty of interesting occupation—she had not a single sordid care—and perfect health.

The dreams, too—It was curious about those dreams. She would now have found it an intolerable bore to sit with hands idle in her lap and eyes upon vacancy, watching the dim, luminous shadows flit aimlessly by. Yet that was the way she used to pass hours—entire days. She used to fight off sleep at night the longer to enjoy her one source of pure happiness. There was no doubt about it, the fire of romance was burning low, and she was becoming commonplace, practical, resigned. Well, why not? Was not life over for her?—that is, the life a girl's fancy longs for. In place of hope of romance, there was an uneasy feeling of a necessity of pleasing this husband of hers—of making him comfortable. What would befall her if she neglected trying to please him or if she, for all her trying, failed? She did not look far in that direction. Her uneasiness remained indefinite—yet definite enough to keep her working from waking until bedtime. And she dropped into the habit of watching his face with the same anxiety with which a farmer watches the weather. When he happened one day to make a careless, absent-minded remark in disapproval of something in the domestic arrangements, she was thrown into such a nervous flutter that he observed it.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Nothing—nothing," replied she in the hurried tone of one who is trying hastily to cover his thoughts.

He reflected, understood, burst into a fit of hearty laughter. "So, you are trying to make a bogey of me?"

She colored, protested faintly.

"Don't you know I'm about the least tyrannical, least exacting person in the world?"

"You've been very patient with me," said she.

"Now—now," cried he in a tone of raillery, "you might as well drop that. Don't you know there's no reason for being afraid of me?"

"Yes, I know it," replied she. "But I feel afraid, just the same. I can't help it."

It was impossible for him to appreciate the effect of his personality upon others—how, without his trying or even wishing, it made them dread a purely imaginary displeasure and its absurdly imaginary consequences. But this confession of hers was not the first time he had heard of the effect of potential and latent danger he had upon those associated with him. And, as it was most useful, he was not sorry that he had it. He made no further attempt to convince her that he was harmless. He knew that he was harmless where she was concerned. Was it not just as well that she should not know it, when vaguely dreading him was producing excellent results? As with a Christian the fear of the Lord was the beginning of wisdom, so with a wife the fear of her husband was the beginning of wisdom. In striving to please him, to fit herself for the position of wife, she was using up the time she would otherwise have spent in making herself miserable with self-pity—that supreme curse of the idle both male and female, that most prolific of the breeders of unhappy wives. Yes, wives were unhappy not because their husbands neglected them, for busy people have no time to note whether they are neglected or not, but because they gave their own worthless, negligent, incapable selves too much attention.

One evening, she, wearing the look of the timid but resolute intruder, came into his room while he was dressing for dinner and hung about with an air no man of his experience could fail to understand.

"Something wrong about the house?" said he finally. "Need more money?"

"No—nothing," she replied, with a slight flush. He saw that she was mustering all her courage for some grand effort. He waited, only mildly curious, as his mind was busy with some new business he and Tetlow had undertaken. Presently she stood squarely before him, her hands behind her back and her face upturned. "Won't you kiss me?" she said.

"Sure!" said he. And he kissed her on the cheek and resumed operations with his military brushes.

"I didn't mean that—that kind of a kiss," said she dejectedly.

He paused with a quick characteristic turn of the head, looked keenly at her, resumed his brushing. A quizzical smile played over his face. "Oh, I see," said he. "You've been thinking about duty. And you've decided to do yours. . . . Eh?"

"I think—It seems to me—I don't think—" she stammered, then said desperately, "I've not been acting right by you. I want to—to do better."

"That's good," said he briskly, with a nod of approval—and never a glance in her direction. "You think you'll let me have a kiss now and then—eh? All right, my dear."

"Oh, you won't understand me!" she cried, ready to weep with vexation.

"You mean I won't misunderstand you," replied he amiably, as he set about fixing his tie. "You've been mulling things over in your mind. You've decided I'm secretly pining for you. You've resolved to be good and kind and dutiful—generous—to feed old dog Tray a few crumbs now and then. . . . That's nice and sweet of you—" He paused until the crisis in tying was passed—"very nice and sweet of you—but—There's nothing in it. All I ask of you for myself is to see that I'm comfortable—that Mrs. Lowell and the servants treat me right. If I don't like anything, I'll speak out—never fear."

"But—Fred—I want to be your wife—I really do," she pleaded.

He turned on her, and his eyes seemed to pierce into the chamber of her thoughts. "Drop it, my dear," he said quietly. "Neither of us is in love with the other. So there's not the slightest reason for pretending. If I ever want to be free of you, I'll tell you so. If you ever want to get rid of me, all you have to do is to ask—and it'll be arranged. Meanwhile, let's enjoy ourselves."

His good humor, obviously unfeigned, would have completely discouraged a more experienced woman, though as vain as Dorothy and with as much ground as he had given her for self-confidence where he was concerned. But Dorothy was depressed rather than profoundly discouraged. A few moments and she found courage to plead: "But you used to care for me. Don't I attract you any more?"

"You say that quite pathetically," said he, in good-humored amusement. "I'm willing to do anything within reason for your happiness. But really—just to please your vanity I can't make myself over again into the fool I used to be about you. You'd hate it yourself. Why, then, this pathetic air?"

"I feel so useless—and as if I were shirking," she persisted. "And if you did care for me, it wouldn't offend me now as it used to. I've grown much wiser—more sensible. I understand things—and I look at them differently. And—I always did like you."

"Even when you despised me?" mocked he. It irritated him a little vividly to recall what a consummate fool he had made of himself for her, even though he had every reason to be content with the event of his folly.

"A girl always thinks she despises a man when she can do as she pleases with him," replied she. "As Mr. Tetlow said, I was a fool."

"I was the fool," said he. "Where did that man of mine lay the handkerchief?"

"I, too," cried she, eagerly. "You were foolish to bother about a little silly like me. But, oh, what a fool I was not to realize——"

"You're not trying to tell me you're in love with me?" said he sharply.

"Oh, no—no, indeed," she protested in haste, alarmed by his overwhelming manner. "I'm not trying to deceive you in any way."

"Never do," said he. "It's the one thing I can't stand."

"But I thought—it seemed to me—" she persisted, "that perhaps if we tried to—to care for each other, we'd maybe get to—to caring—more or less. Don't you think so?"

"Perhaps," was his careless reply. He added, "But I, for one, am well content with things as they are. I confess I don't look back with any satisfaction on those months when I was making an ass of myself about you. I was ruining my career. Now I'm happy, and everything is going fine in my business. No experiments, if you please." He shook his head, looking at her with smiling raillery. "It might turn out that I'd care for you in the same crazy way again, and that you didn't like it. Again you might get excited about me and I'd remain calm about you. That would give me a handsome revenge, but I'm not looking for revenge."

He finished his toilet, she standing quiet and thoughtful in an attitude of unconscious grace.

"No, my dear," resumed he, as he prepared to descend for dinner, "let's have a peaceful, cheerful married life, with no crazy excitements. Let's hang on to what we've got, and take no unnecessary risks." He patted her on the shoulder. "Isn't that sensible?"

She looked at him with serious, appealing eyes. "You are sure you aren't unhappy?"

It was amusing to him—though he concealed it—to see how tenaciously her feminine egotism held to the idea that she was the important person. And, when women of experience thus deluded themselves, it was not at all strange that this girl should be unable to grasp the essential truth as to the relations of men and women—that, while a woman who makes her sex her profession must give to a man, to some man, a dominant place in her life, a man need give a woman—at least, any one woman—little or no place. But he would not wantonly wound her harmless vanity. "Don't worry about me, please," said he in the kindest, friendliest way. "I am telling you the truth."

And they descended to the dining room. Usually he was preoccupied and she did most of the talking—not a difficult matter for her, as she was one of those who by nature have much to say, who talk on and on, giving lively, pleasant recitals of commonplace daily happenings. That evening it was her turn to be abstracted, or, at least, silent. He talked volubly, torrentially, like a man of teeming mind in the highest spirits. And he was in high spirits. The Galloway enterprise had developed into a huge success; also, it did not lessen his sense of the pleasantness of life to have learned that his wife was feeling about as well disposed toward him as he cared to have her feel, had come round to that state of mind which he, as a practical man, wise in the art of life, regarded as ideal for a wife.

A successful man, with a quiet and comfortable home, well enough looked after by an agreeable wife, exceeding good to look at and interested only in her home and her husband—what more could a man ask?

* * * * *

What more could a man ask? Only one thing more—a baby. The months soon passed and that rounding out of the home side of his life was consummated with no mishap. The baby was a girl, which contented him and delighted Dorothy. He wished it to be named after her, she preferred his sister's name—Ursula. It was Ursula who decided the question. "She looks like you, Fred," she declared, after an earnest scanning of the weird little face. "Why not call her Frederica?"

Norman thought this clumsy, but Dorothy instantly assented—and the baby was duly christened Frederica.

Perhaps it was because he was having less pressing business in town, but whatever the reason, he began to stay at home more—surprisingly more. And, being at home, he naturally fell into the habit of fussing with the baby, he having the temperament that compels a man to be always at something, and the baby being convenient and in the nature of a curiosity. Ursula, who was stopping in the house, did not try to conceal her amazement at this extraordinary development of her brother's character.

Said she: "I never before knew you to take the slightest interest in a child."

Said he: "I never before saw a child worth taking the slightest interest in."

"Oh, well," said Ursula, "it won't last. You'll soon grow tired of your plaything."

"Perhaps you're right," said Norman. "I hope you're wrong." He reflected, added: "In fact, I'm almost certain you're wrong. I'm too selfish to let myself lose such a pleasure. If you had observed my life closely, you'd have discovered that I have never given up a single thing I found a source of pleasure. That is good sense. That is why the superior sort of men and women retain something of the boy and the girl all their lives. I still like a lot of the games I played as a boy. For some years I've had no chance to indulge in them. I'll be glad when Rica is old enough to give me the chance again."

She was much amused. "Who'd have suspected that you were a born father!"

"Not I, for one," confessed he. "We never know what there is in us until circumstances bring it out."

"A devoted father and a doting husband," pursued Ursula. "I must say I rather sympathize with you as a doting husband. Of course, I, a woman, can't see her as you do. I can't imagine a man—especially a man of your sort—going stark mad about a mere woman. But, as women go, I'll admit she is a good specimen. Not the marvel of intelligence and complex character you imagine, but still a good specimen. And physically—" She laughed—"That's what caught you. That's what holds you—and will hold you as long as it lasts."

"Was there ever a woman who didn't think that?—and didn't like to think it, though I believe many of them make strong pretense at scorning the physical." Fred was regarding his sister with a quizzical expression. "You approve of her?" he said.

"More than I'd have thought possible. And after I've taken her about in the world a while she'll be perfect."

"No doubt," said Norman. "But, alas, she'll never be perfect. For, you're not going to take her about."

"So she says when I talk of it to her," replied Ursula. "But I know you'll insist. You needn't be uneasy as to how she'll be received."

"I'm not," said Norman dryly.

"You've got back all you lost—and more. How we Americans do worship success!"

"Don't suggest to Dorothy anything further about society," said Norman. "I've no time or taste for it, and I don't wish to be annoyed by intrusions into my home."

"But you'll not be satisfied always with just her," urged his sister. "Besides, you've got a position to maintain."

Norman's smile was cynically patient. "I want my home and I want my career," said he. "And I don't want any society nonsense. I had the good luck to marry a woman who knows and cares nothing about it. I don't purpose to give up the greatest advantage of my marriage."

Ursula was astounded. She knew the meaning of his various tones and manners, and his way of rejecting her plans for Dorothy—and, incidentally, for her own amusement—convinced her that he was through and through in earnest. "It will be dreadfully lonesome for her, Fred," she pleaded.

"We'll wait till that trouble faces us," replied he, not a bit impressed. "And don't forget—not a word of temptation to her from you." This with an expression that warned her how well he knew her indirect ways of accomplishing what she could not gain directly.

"Oh, I shan't interfere," said she in a tone that made it a binding promise. "But you can't expect me to sympathize with your plans for an old-fashioned domestic life."

"Certainly not," said Norman. "You don't understand. Women of your sort never do. That's why you're not fit to be the wives of men worth while. A serious man and a society woman can't possibly hit it off together. For a serious man the outside world is a place to work, and home is a place to rest. For a society woman, the world is a place to idle and home is a work shop, an entertainment factory. It's impossible to reconcile those two opposite ideas."

She saw his point at once, and it appealed to her intelligence. And she had his own faculty for never permitting prejudice to influence judgment. She said in a dubious tone, "Do you think Dorothy will sympathize with your scheme?"

"I'm sure I don't know," replied he.

"If she doesn't—" Ursula halted there.

Her brother shrugged his shoulders. "If she proves to be the wrong sort of woman for me, she'll go her way and I mine."

"Why, I thought you loved her!"

"What have I said that leads you to change your mind?" said he.

"A man does not take the high hand with the woman he adores."

"So?" said Norman tranquilly.

"Well," said his puzzled sister by way of conclusion, "if you persist in being the autocrat——"

"Autocrat?—I?" laughed he. "Am I trying to compel her to do anything she doesn't wish to do? Didn't I say she would be free to go if she were dissatisfied with me and my plan—if she didn't adopt it gladly as her own plan, also?"

"But you know very well she's dependent upon you, Fred."

"Is that my fault? Does a man force a woman to become dependent? And just because she is dependent, should he therefore yield to her and let her make of his life a waste and a folly?"

"You're far too clever for me to argue with. Anyhow, as I was saying, if you persist in what I call tyranny——"

"When a woman cries tyranny, it means she's furious because she is not getting her autocratic way."

"Maybe so," admitted Ursula cheerfully. "At any rate, if you persist—unless she loves you utterly, your life will be miserable."

"She may make her own life miserable, but not mine," replied he. "If I were the ordinary man—counting himself lucky to have induced any woman to marry him—afraid if he lost his woman he'd not be able to get another—able to give his woman only an indifferent poor support, and so on—if I were one of those men, what you say might be true. But what deep and permanent mischief can a frail woman do a strong man?"

"There's instance after instance in history——"

"Of strong men wrecking themselves through various kinds of madness, including sex madness. But, my dear Ursula, not an instance—not one—where the woman was responsible. If history were truth, instead of lies—you women might have less conceit."

"You—talking this way!" mocked Ursula.

"Meaning, I suppose, my late infatuation?" inquired he, unruffled.

"I never saw or read of a worse case."

"Am I ruined?"

"No. But why not? Because you got her. If you hadn't—" Ursula blew out a large cloud of cigarette smoke with a "Pouf!"

"If I hadn't got her," said Norman, "I'd have got well, just the same, in due time. A sick weak man goes down; a sick strong man gets well. When a man who's reputed to be strong doesn't get well, it's because he merely seemed strong but wasn't. The poets and novelists and the historians and the rest of the nature fakers fail to tell all the facts, dear sister. All the facts would spoil a pretty story."

Ursula thought a few minutes, suddenly burst out with, "Do you think Dorothy loves you now?"

Norman rose to go out doors. "I don't think about such unprofitable things," said he. "As long as we suit each other and get along pleasantly—why bother about a name for it?"

In the French window he paused, stood looking out with an expression so peculiar that Ursula, curious, came to see the cause. A few yards away, under a big symmetrical maple in full leaf sat Dorothy with the baby on her lap. She was dressed very simply in white. There was a little sunlight upon her hair, a sheen of gold over her skin. She was looking down at the baby. Her expression——

Said Ursula: "Several of the great painters have tried to catch that expression. But they've failed."

Norman made no reply. He had not heard. All in an instant there had been revealed to him a whole new world—a view of man and woman—of woman—of sex—its meaning so different from what he had believed and lived.

"What're you thinking about, Fred?" inquired his sister.

He shook his head, with a mysterious smile, and strolled away.



XXII

The baby grew and thrived, as the habit is with healthy children well taken care of. Mrs. Norman soon got back her strength, her figure, and perhaps more than her former beauty—as the habit is with healthy women well taken care of. Norman's career continued to prosper, likewise according to the habit of all healthy things well taken care of. In a world where nothing happens by chance, mischance, to be serious, must have some grave fault as its hidden cause. We mortals, who love to live at haphazard and to blame God or destiny or "bad luck" for our calamities, hate to take this modern and scientific view of the world and life. But, whether we like it or not, it is the truth—and, as we can't get round it, why not accept it cheerfully and, so appear a little less ignorant and ridiculous?

During their first year at the Hempstead place the results in luxury and comfort had at no time accounted for the money it cost and the servants it employed—that is to say, paid. But Norman was neither unreasonable nor impatient. Also, in his years of experience with his sister's housekeeping, and of observation of the other women, he had grown exceedingly moderate in his estimate of the ability of women and in his expectations from them. He had reached the conclusion that the women who were sheltered and pampered by the men of the successful classes were proficient only in those things that call for no skill or effort beyond the wagging of the tongue. He saw that Dorothy was making honest endeavor to learn her business, and he knew that learning takes time—much time.

He believed that in the end she would do better than any other wife of his acquaintance, at the business of wife and mother.

Before the baby was two years old, his belief was rewarded. Things began to run better—began to run well, even. Dorothy—a serious person, unhampered of a keen sense of humor, had taught herself the duties of her new position in much the same slow plodding way in which she had formerly made of herself a fair stenographer and a tolerable typewriter. Mrs. Lowell had helped—and Ursula, too—and Norman not a little. But Dorothy, her husband discovered, was one of those who thoroughly assimilate what they take in—who make it over into part of themselves. So, her manner of keeping house, of arranging the gardens, of bringing up the baby, of dressing herself, was peculiarly her own. It was not by any means the best imaginable way. It was even what many energetic, systematic and highly competent persons would speak contemptuously of. But it satisfied Norman—and that was all Dorothy had in mind.

If those who have had any considerable opportunity to observe married life will forget what they have read in novels and will fix their minds on what they have observed at first hand, they will recognize the Norman marriage, with the husband and wife living together yet apart as not peculiar but of a rather common type. Neither Fred nor Dorothy had any especial reason on any given day to try to alter their relations; so the law of inertia asserted itself and matters continued as they had begun. It was, perhaps, a chance remark of Tetlow's that was the remote but efficient cause of a change, as the single small stone slipping high up on the mountain side results in a vast landslide into the valley miles below. Tetlow said one day, in connection with some estate they were settling: