a little less?"

She thought a moment.

"I don't see how," she decided. "I never get anything I don't want."

"That's something," he nodded approvingly. "Then you think I must earn
more than fifty a week?"

"I only know that Dad gives me an allowance of ten thousand a year,
and there's never anything left," she answered.

"Ten thousand a year!" he exclaimed.

"Everything is so expensive to-day, Don. All this talk sounds
frightfully vulgar, but--there's no use pretending, is there?"

"Not a bit," he answered. "If ten thousand a year is what you need,
ten thousand a year is what I must earn."

"I don't believe it's very hard, because Dad does it so easily," she
declared.

"I'll get it," he nodded confidently. "And, now that it's all settled,
let's forget it. Come over to the piano and sing for me."

He sat down before the keys and played her accompaniments, selecting
his own songs. They ran through some of the latest opera successes,
and then swung off to the simpler and older things. It was after
"Annie Laurie" that he rose and looked deep into her eyes.

"I'll get it for you," he said soberly.

"Oh, Don!" she whispered. "Sometimes nothing seems important but just
you."

CHAPTER IV

CONCERNING SANDWICHES

The arrangement that Barton made for his late client's son was to
enter the banking house of Carter, Rand & Seagraves, on a salary of
twelve hundred dollars a year. Don found the letter at the Harvard
Club the next morning, and immediately telephoned Barton.

"Look here!" he exclaimed. "I appreciate what you've tried to do and
all that, but what in thunder good is twelve hundred dollars a year?"

"It is at least twelve hundred more than you have now," suggested
Barton.

"But how can I live on it?"

"You must remember you have the house--"

"Hang the house," Don interrupted. "I must eat and smoke and buy
clothes, mustn't I? Besides, there's Frances. She needs ten thousand a
year."

"I have no doubt but that, in time, a man of your ability--"

"How long a time?"

"As to that I am not prepared to give an opinion," replied Barton.

"Because it isn't when I'm eighty that I want it."

"I should say the matter was entirely in your own hands. This at least
offers you an opening, and I advise you to accept it. However, you
must decide for yourself; and if at any later date I may be of
service--"

Don returned to the lounge to think the matter over. It was ten
o'clock and he had not yet