ady."

"Lily only came home yesterday, Jim," Elinor observed. "Her own people
will want to see something of her. Besides, they do no know she is
here."

Lily felt slightly chilled. For years she had espoused her Aunt
Elinor's cause; in the early days she had painfully hemstitched a small
handkerchief each fall and had sent it, with much secrecy, to Aunt
Elinor's varying addresses at Christmas. She had felt a childish
resentment of Elinor Doyle's martyrdom. And now--

"Her father and grandfather are dining out to-night." Had Lily looked up
she would have seen Doyle's eyes fixed on his wife, ugly and menacing.

"Dining out?" Lily glanced at him in surprise.

"There is a dinner to-night, for the--" He checked himself "The steel
manufacturers are having a meeting," he finished. "I believe to discuss
me, among other things. Amazing the amount of discussion my simple
opinions bring about."

Elinor Doyle, unseen, made a little gesture of despair and surrender.

"I hope you will stay, Lily," she said. "You can telephone, if you like.
I don't see you often, and there is so much I want to ask you."

In the end Lily agreed. She would find out from Grayson if the men were
really dining out, and if they were Grayson would notify her mother that
she was staying. She did not quite know herself why she had accepted,
unless it was because she was bored and restless at home. Perhaps, too,
the lure of doing a forbidden thing influenced her sub-consciously, the
thought that her grandfather would detest it. She had not forgiven him
for the night before.

Jim Doyle left her in the back hall at the telephone, and returned
to the sitting room, dosing the door behind him. His face was set and
angry.

"I thought I told you to be pleasant."

"I tried, Jim. You must remember I hardly know her." She got up and
placed her hand on his arm, but he shook it off. "I don't understand,
Jim, and I wish you wouldn't. What good is it?"

"I've told you what I want. I want that girl to come here, and to like
coming here. That's plain, isn't it? But if you're going to sit with a
frozen face--She'll be useful. Useful as hell to a preacher."

"I can't use my family that way."

"You and your family! Now listen, Elinor. This isn't a matter o the
Cardews and me. It may be nothing, but it may be a big thing. I hardly
know yet--" His voice trailed off; he stood with his head bent, lost in
those eternal calculations with which Elinor Doyle was so famil