eplechase, and you can't find a plain
chair to sit down or eat a plain meal or read a newspaper. It's more
than a blamed nuisance--it's cause for a trial by jury," he added,
whimsically. "Now what's wrong?"--watching Mary's face.

"It isn't cricket to tell all this."

Somehow the old struggle began with renewed energy in Mary's heart,
the puritanical part saying: "Forget you ever thought twice of this
man"; and the dreamer part urging: "You have earned the right to love
him. She has not. Just be fair--merely fair. You have the right; don't
let your opportunity slip by."

[Illustration: "It was with a charming timidity that she tip-toed into
the office"]

"Why can't I tell you? I have no one else to whom I can tell
things--and I'm so everlastingly tired. Goat tending and living off
dried buffalo meat never fagged me like trying to dance with Trudy and
living on truffles and champagne. First you are mentally bewildered
and physically fagged, then you become defiant; then you realize that
that is no use, you've brought this on your own self--it is quite the
common fate of men like myself--and so you keep on with the steady
grind; and by and by you find yourself longing to play in your own way
with your own sort. The other sort have no use for you so long as you
pay their bills; you are hardly missed, if the truth were told.

"Well, you must keep on with the grind. And you want your sort of
playmates and fun, and it's such decent, upright fun in comparison--oh,
pshaw!" He stood up, kicking the edge of the rug with his foot in
almost boyish, shamed fashion.

"Business isn't quite so good," he began anew in an impersonal, even
voice. "Mr. Constantine thinks that the abnormal prosperity is on the
wane for keeps--we must prepare for it--but Mr. Constantine has
practically retired since you have been away. He's not well. To-morrow
morning, if you don't mind, I'll take you over there and we can
straighten out some things for him. He is selling the greater share of
stock to men from the West. And he's saved out some pretty nice sugar
plums to hand over to me. I haven't been asked whether or not I want
them."

"I'm sorry."

"I knew you would be, Miss Iconoclast."

"Why do you accept them?"

"How can I refuse?"

"By saying you are not prepared to be a mental wreck at forty--which
you will be if you try such a gigantic scheme with so little
preparation. I've an idea that when Mr. Constantine is known to have
withdrawn