riod of being his assistant
bookkeeper, and now, having risen with the fortunes of Steve O'Valley,
she faced him on an almost equal footing--another queer quirk of
American commerce.

She realized that his tense race after wealth had been in a sense
his strange manner of grieving for his wife. But his absolute
concentration along one line resulted in a lack of wisdom concerning
all other lines. Though he could figure to the fraction of a dollar
how to beat the game, play big-fish-swallow-little-fish and get
away with it, he had no more judgment as to his daughter's absurd
self than Monster, who had gone on the honeymoon wrapped in a new
silken blanket. You cannot have your cake and eat it, too, as Mary
had decided during her early days of running errands for nervous
modistes who boxed her ears one moment and gave her a silk remnant
the next. Neither can a man put all his powers of action into one
channel, blinding himself to all else in the world, and expect to
emerge well balanced and normal in his judgments.

As Mary agreed to help Constantine out of his debris of French clocks
and pewter for the breakfast room she began to feel sorry for him even
if he was a business pirate--for he had paid an extremely high price
for the privilege of being made a fool of by his own child.

He escorted her to the limousine and they whirled up to the apartment
house, where in all the gray stone, iron grille work, hall-boy
elegance there now resided three couples of the Gorgeous Girl type,
and where Bea's apartment awaited her coming, the former tenants
having been forced to vacate in time to have the place completely
redone.

"I wouldn't ask Gaylord if I had to do it myself," Constantine said,
brushing by the maid who opened the door. "There is a young man we
could easily spare. If he ever gets as good a job as painting spots on
rocking-horses I'll eat my hat."

Mary was surveying the room. "Where--where do we go to from here?" she
faltered.

Constantine sank into a large chair, shaking his head. "Damned if I
know," he panted. "Look at that truck!"--pointing to piles of wedding
gifts.

Mary walked the length of the drawing room. It had black velvet panels
and a tan carpet with angora rugs spread at perilous intervals; there
was a flowered-silk chaise-longue, bright yellow damask furniture, and
an Italian-Renaissance screen before the marble fireplace.

Opening out of this was a salon--this was where the Chinese panels
were