moved without question.

American business men do not always toil until they are middle-aged
for the reward of being made a fool by a chorus girl or an adventuress.
That belongs to yellow-backed penny-dreadfuls and Sunday supplement
tales of breach-of-promise suits. More often the daughter of the
business man is both the victim and the vampire of his own shortsighted
neglectfulness. The business man expresses it as "working like a slave
to give her the best in the land." And sometimes, as in the case of
Steve O'Valley, it is his own wife instead of a blonde soul mate who
lures him to destruction in six installments.

When Beatrice first knew of Gaylord's return she was inclined to
pay no attention to his wife, despite her remarks to Steve. Then
Gaylord telephoned, and she had him up for afternoon tea, during
which he told her all about it. He was very diplomatic in his
undertaking. He pictured Trudy as a diamond in the rough, and in
subtle, careful fashion gave Beatrice to understand that just as
she had married a diamond in the rough--with a Virginia City
grandfather and a Basque grandmother and the champion record of
goat tending--so he, too, had been democratic enough to put aside
precedent and marry a charming, unspoiled little person with both
beauty and ability, and certainly he was to be congratulated since
he had been married for love alone, Truletta knowing full well his
unfortunate and straitened circumstances.... Yes, her people lived
in Michigan but were uncongenial. Still, there was good blood in
the family only it was a long ways back, probably as far back as
the age of spear fighting, and he relied upon Beatrice, his old
playmate, to sympathize with and uphold his course.

Secretly annoyed that the tables had been so skillfully turned, yet
not willing to admit it to this bullying morsel, Beatrice was obliged
to say she would call upon his wife and ask them for dinner the
following week.

Gaylord fairly floated home, to find Trudy remodelling a dress, scraps
of fur and shreds of satin on the floor.

"Babseley, she's coming to call to-morrow!" he said, joyfully, hanging
up his velours hat and straddling a little gilt chair.

"Really? I wish we had a better place. I feel at a disadvantage. If it
were a man I wouldn't mind, I could act humble and brave--that sort of
dope. But it never goes with a woman; you have to bully a rich woman,
and I'm wondering if I can."

"I did," he said, his pale eyes twin