d boarded without cares at Mary's house. She must
always seem happy and proud of her husband and have her old pep--being
on the lookout for a way to make their fortunes. She must also remain
as young looking as ever and always be at his beck and call. Gaylord
was rapidly developing into an impossible little bully, the usual
result of an impoverished snob who manages to become a barnacle-like
fixture on someone a trifle more foolish yet better of nature than
himself.

Had he been less aristocratic of family and stronger of brawn he
would have beaten Trudy if she displeased him. As it was, after the
first flush of romance passed, he began to sneer at her in private
when she made mistakes in the ways of the smart set into which Gaylord
had been born, and when she protested he only sneered the louder. He
felt Trudy should be eternally grateful to him. Trudy found herself
bewildered, hurt--yet unable to combat his contemptible little laughs
and sneers. Trudy was shallow and she knew not the meaning of the
word "ideal," but for the most part she was rather amiable and
unless she had a certain goal to attain she wished everyone about
her to be happy and content. As she had married Gaylord only as a
stepping-stone she was fair enough to remind herself of this fact
when unpleasant developments occurred. As long as he was useful to
her she was not going to seize upon pin-pricks and try to make them
into actual wounds.

She decided to wear her one decent tea gown when Beatrice called,
pleading a bad headache as an excuse for its appearance. She knew the
tea gown was an excellent French model, a hand-me-down from Gay's
sister, and her nimble fingers had cleaned and mended the trailing
pink-silk loveliness until it would make quite a satisfactory first
impression.

She cleaned the apartment, recklessly bought cut flowers, bonbons, and
two fashion magazines to give an impression of plenty. She even set
old golf clubs and motor togs in the tiny hall, and she timed
Beatrice's arrival so as to put the one grand-opera record on the
talking machine just as she was coming up the stairs.

Then she ran to the door in pretty confusion, to say spiritedly: "Oh,
Mrs. O'Valley, so good of you. I'm ever so happy to have you. I'm
afraid it isn't proper to be wearing this old tea gown but I had a bad
headache this morning and I stayed in bed until nearly luncheon, then
I slipped into the first thing handy.... Oh, no. Only a nervous
headache. W