ckmated her, re-lit his cigar and waited
until she should notice it. And when she did not notice, gravely he moved
back his queen and let the game continue. How many hundreds of games, he
thought, Edith must have played with him in the long years when his spirit
was dead, for her now to take such chances. Nearly every Friday evening for
nearly sixteen years.

Before that, Judith his wife had been here. It was then that the city had
been young, for to Roger it had always seemed as though he were just
beginning life. Into its joys and sorrows too he had groped his way as most
of us do, and had never penetrated deep. But he had meant to, later on.
When in his busy city days distractions had arisen, always he had promised
himself that sooner or later he would return to this interest or passion,
for the world still lay before him with its enthralling interests, its
beauties and its pleasures, its tasks and all its puzzles, intricate and
baffling, all some day to be explored.

This deep zest in Roger Gale had been bred in his boyhood on a farm up in
the New Hampshire mountains. There his family had lived for many
generations. And from the old house, the huge shadowy barn and the crude
little sawmill down the road; from animals, grown people and still more
from other boys, from the meadows and the mountain above with its cliffs
and caves and forests of pine, young Roger had discovered, even in those
early years, that life was fresh, abundant, new, with countless glad
beginnings.

At seventeen he had come to New York. There had followed hard struggles in
lean years, but his rugged health had buoyed him up. And there had been
genial friendships and dreams and explorations, a search for romance, the
strange glory of love, a few furtive ventures that left him dismayed. But
though love had seemed sordid at such times it had brought him crude
exultations. And if his existence had grown more obscure, it had been
somber only in patches, the main picture dazzling still. And still he had
been just making starts.

He had ventured into the business world, clerking now at this, now at that,
and always looking about him for some big opportunity. It had come and he
had seized it, despite the warnings of his friends. What a wild adventure
it had been a bureau of news clippings, a business new and unheard of but
he had been sure that here was growth, he had worked at it day and night,
and the business widening fast had revealed long ramific