cent you spent and made. It
was for my girl, my Gorgeous Girl, so why wouldn't I do it? I saved
your ideals and kept your hands white so that you would be good enough
for her; that was what I figured out the hour after you had told me
your intentions. I followed you like the fairy books tell of; I
brought you your fortune and your factory and scotched all the
enemies about you--and gave you the girl. And you thought you
killed the seven-headed dragon yourself.... I don't blame you for
the foozle, Steve; I cotton-woolled you all along--it was bound to
come. But, damme, you'll come down to brass tacks and take more of
my money now and keep her from being unhappy and stop this snivel
about earning what you get and needing responsibilities--or you'll
find you've put your foot into hell and you can't pull it out!"

White-heat anger enveloped Steve's very soul, yet strangely enough he
felt not like sinning but rather like Laertes crying out in mental
anguish: "Do you see this, O God?"

CHAPTER XXI

Steve knew he brushed by Aunt Belle, who was coming in to see what her
brother was roaring about, and down those detestable gilded curlicue
stairs to seek out his wife and try again to make her realize that for
once he was determined on what should come to pass as regarded their
future together, to force her to realize even if he created a cheap
scene.

Whatever blame fell upon Constantine's shoulders was not within his
province to judge--Constantine was a dying man and Steve was not quite
thirty-five. So that ended the matter from Steve's viewpoint. It was
his intention not to try to evade his personal blame in the matter but
to make reparation to his own self and to his wife if he were
permitted. If he could once convince his wife that their sole chance
of future happiness and sanity lay in beginning as medium-incomed
young persons with all the sane world before them it would have been
worth it all--excepting for Mary Faithful.

Even as Steve tried in a quick, tense fashion to dismiss Mary from his
mind and say that Beatrice was his wife and that love must come as the
leavener once this hideous wealth was removed, he knew the thing
was impossible. The best solution of which he was capable was to say
that he owed it to both Mary Faithful and Beatrice to play the game
from the right angle and that in causing Beatrice to disclaim her
title of Gorgeous Girl and all it implied he at least would find
contentment--the sa