esture; "I knew wheat was going to go up. I knew
it from the first, when all the rest of em laughed at me. I knew this
European demand would hit us hard about this time. I knew it was a good
thing to buy wheat; I knew it was a good thing to have special agents
over in Europe. Oh, they'll all buy now--when I've showed 'em the way.
Upon my word, I haven't talked so much in a month of Sundays. You must
pardon me, Mr. Corthell. I don't make five hundred thousand every day."

"But this is the last--isn't it?" said Laura.

"Yes," admitted Jadwin, with a quick, deep breath. "I'm done now. No
more speculating. Let some one else have a try now. See if they can
hold five million bushels till it's wanted. My, my, I am tired--as I've
said before. D'that tea come, Laura?"

"What's that in your hand?" she answered, smiling.

Jadwin stared at the cup and saucer he held, whimsically. "Well, well,"
he exclaimed, "I must be flustered. Corthell," he declared between
swallows, "take my advice. Buy May wheat. It'll beat art all hollow."

"Oh, dear, no," returned the artist. "I should lose my senses if I won,
and my money if I didn't.

"That's so. Keep out of it. It's a rich man's game. And at that,
there's no fun in it unless you risk more than you can afford to lose.
Well, let's not talk shop. You're an artist, Mr. Corthell. What do you
think of our house?"

Later on when they had said good-by to Corthell, and when Jadwin was
making the rounds of the library, art gallery, and drawing-rooms--a
nightly task which he never would intrust to the servants--turning down
the lights and testing the window fastenings, his wife said:

"And now you are out of it--for good."

"I don't own a grain of wheat," he assured her. "I've got to be out of
it."

The next day he went down town for only two or three hours in the
afternoon. But he did not go near the Board of Trade building. He
talked over a few business matters with the manager of his real estate
office, wrote an unimportant letter or two, signed a few orders, was
back at home by five o'clock, and in the evening took Laura, Page, and
Landry Court to the theatre.

After breakfast the next morning, when he had read his paper, he got
up, and, thrusting his hands in his pockets, looked across the table at
his wife.

"Well," he said. "Now what'll we do?"

She put down at once the letter she was reading.

"Would you like to drive in the park?" she suggested. "It is a
beautiful morning."