r wasn't so well fixed as everyone thought. With management and
care, we could have stayed in the old house, I believe, and kept up
appearances, at least. What's the use of advertising that we're broke?"

"But, Steve, you know Mr. Graves said--"

"Oh, yes, I know. You swallowed every word Graves said, Caro, as if
he was the whole book of Proverbs. By George, _I_ don't; I'm from
Missouri."

Mr. Warren, being in the Sophomore class at Yale, was of the age when
one is constitutionally "from Missouri." Probably King Solomon, at
sixty, had doubts concerning the scope and depth of his wisdom; at
eighteen he would have admitted its all-embracing infallibility without
a blush.

"I tell you," continued Stephen, "there's no sense in it, Sis. You and I
know plenty of people whose incomes are no larger than ours. Do they
'economize,' as Graves is continually preaching? They do not, publicly
at least. They may save a bit, here and there, but they do it where it
doesn't show and nobody knows. Take the Blaisdells, for instance. When
the Sodality Bank went up, and old Blaisdell died, everybody said the
family was down and out. They must have lost millions. But did _they_
move into 'apartments' and put up a placard, 'Home of the Dead-Brokes.
Walk in and Sympathize?' I guess they didn't! They went into mourning,
of course, and that let them out of entertaining and all that, but they
stayed where they were and kept up the bluff. That's the thing that
counts in this world--keeping up the bluff."

"Yes, but everyone knows they are--bluffing, as you call it."

"What of it? They don't really know, they only suspect. And I met Jim
Blaisdell yesterday and he shook my hand, after I had held it in front
of his eyes where he couldn't help seeing it, and had the nerve to tell
me he hoped things weren't as bad with us as he had heard."

"I never liked the Blaisdells," declared Caroline, indignantly.

"Neither did I. Neither do most people. But Jim is just as much in the
swim as he ever was, and he's got his governor's place on the board of
directors at the bank, now that it's reorganized, and an office down
town, and he's hand and glove with Von Blarcom and all the rest.
They think he's a promising, plucky young man. They'll help his bluff
through. And are his mother and sister dropped by the people in their
set? I haven't noticed it."

"Well, Mrs. Corcoran Dunn told me that everyone was talking about
the Blaisdells and wondering how long