careers.
But the careers were not forthcoming.

I was thrown constantly with Adolf Scherer; I had earned his gratitude,
I had become necessary to him. But after the great coup whereby he had
fulfilled Mr. Watling's prophecy and become the chief factor in our
business world he began to show signs of discontent, of an irritability
that seemed foreign to his character, and that puzzled me. One day,
however, I stumbled upon the cause of this fermentation, to wonder that
I had not discovered it before. In many ways Adolf Scherer was a child.
We were sitting in the Boyne Club.

"Money--yes!" he exclaimed, apropos of some demand made upon him by
a charitable society. "They come to me for my money--there is always
Scherer, they say. He will make up the deficit in the hospitals. But
what is it they do for me? Nothing. Do they invite me to their houses,
to their parties?"

This was what he wanted, then,--social recognition. I said nothing, but
I saw my opportunity: I had the clew, now, to a certain attitude he had
adopted of late toward me, an attitude of reproach; as though, in return
for his many favours to me, there were something I had left undone. And
when I went home I asked Maude to call on Mrs. Scherer.

"On Mrs. Scherer!" she repeated.

"Yes, I want you to invite them to dinner." The proposal seemed to take
away her breath. "I owe her husband a great deal, and I think he feels
hurt that the wives of the men he knows down town haven't taken up his
family." I felt that it would not be wise, with Maude, to announce my
rather amazing discovery of the iron-master's social ambitions.

"But, Hugh, they must be very happy, they have their friends. And after
all this time wouldn't it seem like an intrusion?"

"I don't think so," I said, "I'm sure it would please him, and them. You
know how kind he's been to us, how he sent us East in his private car
last year."

"Of course I'll go if you wish it, if you're sure they feel that way."
She did make the call, that very week, and somewhat to my surprise
reported that she liked Mrs. Scherer and the daughters: Maude's likes
and dislikes, needless to say, were not governed by matters of policy.

"You were right, Hugh," she informed me, almost with enthusiasm,
"they did seem lonely. And they were so glad to see me, it was rather
pathetic. Mr. Scherer, it seems, had talked to them a great deal about
you. They wanted to know why I hadn't come before. That was rather
embarrassing.