xtravagant," she began faintly as he opened the
door. She reached out her hand to find his.

He brought a chair over beside the chaise-longue and sat down
obediently, holding the small, fragrant fingers in his own. "I'd be
mighty glad if you felt you could live more simply."

"You duck! Just what I'm about to do. I'm going to be the loveliest
Queen Calico you ever did see--I've no doubt but what I'll be making
you a beefsteak pudding before long."

Steve smiled. "Who will take this castle of gloom from under us?"

"Oh! We may as well stay here--I don't mean that sort of retrenching--I
mean in other ways. I'm not going to give expensive bridge parties
or keep three motors and a saddle horse--I can't ride any more,
anyway--and I'm not going to have a professional reader for papa.
Aunt Belle, you, and I can manage that--that will take fifteen dollars
a week from the expenses. Besides, I am going to have three-course
dinners from now on--no game, fish, or extra sweet. That will make a
difference--in time. I shall not buy the new dinner set I had
halfway ordered--it was wonderful, of course, but I have no right to
use money for nonsense. Papa can give it to me for my birthday if he
wants to. Gifts don't count, do they, Stevuns?

"Then there is the servant question. Now cook is seventy-five dollars
a month; the three maids are fifty each, besides all they steal and
waste; the laundress and her helper, the chauffeur and all the garden
men; the food, light, heat--to say nothing of extra expenses; my
parties and trips and the enormous bills for taxes and upkeep that
papa pays--I'm afraid to say how much it comes to each month. But it
is going to stop! Then my clothes--I'm just ashamed to think--while
you, poor dear, exist on nothing----Oh, thank you, Elsie." A maid had
brought in a supper tray.

"I didn't want to come downstairs, so I sent for some lunch." She
watched Steve's amused expression. "Aunt Belle gets on my nerves and
unless we are having people in, the room is too big to have a family
meal."

On the tray was a dish heaped with tartlettes aux fruits, cornets a la
creme, babas au rhum, petits fours, madeleines, and Napoleons. There
was another dish filled with marrons glaces and malaga grapes
preserved in sugar. A few faint wedges of bread and butter pointed the
way to the pot of iced chocolate and the pitcher of whipped cream.

"Well," Steve ventured, looking at the tray, "I'm afraid I don't
agree----"

"I