en so independent they ain't got any
country any more 'n what Cain had."

"You can't suppose that Mr. Davidge has enemies among his own
people?"

"O' course he has! Slews of 'em. Some them workmen can't forgive the
man that gives 'em a job."

"But he pays big wages. Think of what Jake gets."

"Oh, him! If he got all they was, he'd holler he was bein' cheated.
Hollerin' and hatin' always come easy to Jake. If they wasn't easy, he
wouldn't do 'em."

Marie Louise gasped: "Abbie! In Heaven's name, you don't imply--"

"No, I don't!" snapped Abbie. "I never implied in my life, and don't
you go sayin' I did."

Abbie was at bay now. She had to defend her man from outside
suspicion. Suspicion of her husband is a wife's prerogative

Marie Louise was too much absorbed in the general vision of man's
potential villainy to follow up the individual clue. She was
frightened away from considering Jake as a candidate for such infamy.
Her wildest imaginings never put him in association with Nicky
Easton.

There were so many excursions and alarms in the world of 1917 that the
riddle of who tried to sink the ship on dry land joined a myriad
others in the riddle limbo.

When Marie Louise was well enough to go back to her business school
she found riddles enough in trying to decide where this letter or that
had got to on the crazy keyboard, or what squirmy shorthand symbol it
was that represented this syllable or that.

She had lost the little speed she had had, and it was double drudgery
regaining the forgotten lore. But she stood the gaff and found herself
on the dizzy height of graduation from a lowly business school. She
had traveled a long way from the snobbery of her recent years.

Davidge recognized her face and her voice when she presented herself
before him. But her soul was an utter stranger. She did not invite him
to call on her or warn him that she was coming to call on him.

She appeared in his anteroom and bribed one of the clerks to go to him
with a message:

"A young lady's outside--wants a position--as a stenogerpher."

Davidge growled without looking up:

"Why bother me? Send her to the chief clerk."

"She wants to see you specially."

"I'm out."

"Said Miss Webling sent her."

"O Lord!--show her in."

Marie Louise entered. Davidge looked up, leaped up.

She did not come in with the drawing-room, train-dragging manner of
Miss Webling. She did not wear the insolent beauty of Mamise of the
Musica