I had asked Raymond to call on me with any new scheme that was taking
his attention, and one forenoon he walked in.

He had an envelope of loose papers. He laid some of them on my desk and
thumbed a few others with an undecided expression.

"What do you think of this?" he asked. "I've got to have more money, and
here's something that may bring it in."

It was a speculative industrial affair in Upper Michigan. I saw some
familiar names attached--among them that of John W. McComas, though not
prominently.

"I'll find out for you," I said.

"I don't want you to find out from him."

"I'll find out."

Raymond fingered his envelope fussily: there was nothing left in it.

"It's all costing me too much. Extras at that school. That big
house--too big, too expensive. I can't lug it along any farther. Find me
some one to buy it."

"I'll see," I said.

I told him about our visit to the club, two or three months before. I
implied, in as delicate and circumambulatory a way as possible, that his
one-time wife, according to my own observations, taken under peculiarly
favorable, because exacting, conditions, was completely accepted.

"Oh yes," he replied, as if the matter had been settled years ago, and
as if he had long had that sense of it. Yes, he seemed to be saying, the
marriage had made it all right for her, and had soon begun to make it
better for him. Possibly not a "deceived" husband; and no longer so
rawly flagrant a failure as a human companion.

"Their house is good, I gather," he went on. "There were some plates of
it in the architectural journals. Just how good he doesn't know, I
suppose--and never will."

"I found him fairly appreciative of it."

"Possibly--as a financial achievement brought about by his own money."

"He's learning some of its good points," I declared.

"There was some talk of having Albert there, just before they went off
to the Yellowstone." He frowned. "Well, this can't go on so many more
years, now."

I did not quite get Raymond's attitude. He did not want the boy with him
at home. He did not want to meet any extra expenses--and Mrs. McComas
was assuredly paying Albert's way through mid-summer, as well as
eternally buying him clothes. I think that what Raymond wanted--and
wanted but rather weakly--was his own will, whether there was any
advantage in it or not, and wanted that will without payments, charges,
costs.

I disliked his grudging way, or rather, his balking way, as r