presence as a matter of course. He wanted cold bottled beer.
When he found that the ice was out and the beer warm and flat, he was
furious.

Christine had been making a fight, although her heart was only half
in it. She was resolutely good-humored, ignored the past, dressed for
Palmer in the things he liked. They still took their dinners at the
Lorenz house up the street. When she saw that the haphazard table
service there irritated him, she coaxed her mother into getting a
butler.

The Street sniffed at the butler behind his stately back. Secretly and
in its heart, it was proud of him. With a half-dozen automobiles, and
Christine Howe putting on low neck in the evenings, and now a butler,
not to mention Harriet Kennedy's Mimi, it ceased to pride itself on
its commonplaceness, ignorant of the fact that in its very lack of
affectation had lain its charm.

On the night that Joe shot Max Wilson, Palmer was noticeably restless.
He had seen Grace Irving that day for the first time but once since
the motor accident. To do him justice, his dissipation of the past few
months had not included women.

The girl had a strange fascination for him. Perhaps she typified the
care-free days before his marriage; perhaps the attraction was deeper,
fundamental. He met her in the street the day before Max Wilson was
shot. The sight of her walking sedately along in her shop-girl's black
dress had been enough to set his pulses racing. When he saw that she
meant to pass him, he fell into step beside her.

"I believe you were going to cut me!"

"I was in a hurry."

"Still in the store?"

"Yes." And, after a second's hesitation: "I'm keeping straight, too."

"How are you getting along?"

"Pretty well. I've had my salary raised."

"Do you have to walk as fast as this?"

"I said I was in a hurry. Once a week I get off a little early. I--"

He eyed her suspiciously.

"Early! What for?"

"I go to the hospital. The Rosenfeld boy is still there, you know."

"Oh!"

But a moment later he burst out irritably:--

"That was an accident, Grace. The boy took the chance when he engaged
to drive the car. I'm sorry, of course. I dream of the little
devil sometimes, lying there. I'll tell you what I'll do," he added
magnanimously. "I'll stop in and talk to Wilson. He ought to have done
something before this."

"The boy's not strong enough yet. I don't think you can do anything for
him, unless--"

The monstrous injustice of the thing