NANCE

The next two months were busy ones for Brewster. Miss Drew saw him
quite as often as before the important interview, but he was always a
puzzle to her.

"His attitude is changed somehow," she thought to herself, and then she
remembered that "a man who wins a girl after an ardent suit is often
like one who runs after a street car and then sits down to read his
paper."

In truth after the first few days Monty seemed to have forgotten his
competitors, and was resting in the consciousness of his assured
position. Each day he sent her flowers and considered that he had more
than done his duty. He used no small part of his income on the flowers,
but in this case his mission was almost forgotten in his love for
Barbara.

Monty's attitude was not due to any wanting of his affection, but to
the very unromantic business in which he was engaged. It seemed to him
that, plan as he might, he could not devise fresh ways and means to
earn $16,000 a day. He was still comfortably ahead in the race, but a
famine in opportunities was not far remote. Ten big dinner parties and
a string of elaborate after-the-play suppers maintained a fair but
insufficient average, and he could see that the time was ripe for
radical measures. He could not go on forever with his dinners. People
were already beginning to refer to the fact that he was warming his
toes on the Social Register, and he had no desire to become the
laughing stock of the town. The few slighting, sarcastic remarks about
his business ability, chiefly by women and therefore reflected from the
men, hurt him. Miss Drew's apparently harmless taunt and Mrs. Dan's
open criticism told plainly enough how the wind was blowing, but it was
Peggy's gentle questions that cut the deepest. There was such honest
concern in her voice that he could see how his profligacy was troubling
her and Mrs. Gray. In their eyes, more than in the others, he felt
ashamed and humiliated. Finally, goaded by the remark of a bank
director which he overheard, "Edwin P. Brewster is turning handsprings
in his grave over the way he is going it," Monty resolved to redeem
himself in the eyes of his critics. He would show them that his brain
was not wholly given over to frivolity.

With this project in mind he decided to cause a little excitement in
Wall Street. For some days he stealthily watched the stock market and
plied his friends with questions about values. Constant reading and
observation finally convinc