Stafford looked up and smiled.

"Why--it's just as you said. My own place is so attractive that I
can't do any work there. The paintings, statuary, bric-a-brac and
what-not, distract my attention too much. If I have an important
letter to draft, I can't think of what I want to say because my eyes
are fascinated by the Peachblow vases on top of the bookcase. You
haven't seen the vases, have you, Fred? They're 'peaches,' all right.
I gave $3,000 for the pair. That's going some for a bit of breakable
bric-a-brac. Come up to dinner some night and see them. I'll tell Oku
you're coming, and he'll get up something good--one of his swell
Japanese dishes."

"Not on your life," interrupted the other with a grimace. "Japs and
Chinks eat all kinds of freak things--nightingale tongues and such
stuff. No--thanks. Your Oku's a decent little sort, as Jap butlers go,
but when it comes to cooking, give me Christian food and a French
_chef_ every time."

Stafford laughed heartily.

"Fred--my boy--you're shockingly provincial and bourgeois. I'm afraid
I'll never make a cosmopolite out of you. Well, as I said, there is
too much art about the place. It seems sacrilege to even think
business there, so when I'm putting through any big deal, I just slip
away and come to this hotel for a few days. At home I'm an art lover,
revelling in the treasures I have succeeded in collecting; here I am a
vulgar business person, occupied in the undignified task of making
money. Only last week, when I was home, I got thinking out a plan one
night in the library for a merger with a road which is cutting pretty
badly into our business. I had thought out a plan, the details were
working out nicely in my mind, when suddenly my gaze fell on the Corot
hung just above my desk. You know the picture. Did you ever see more
exquisite coloring, a more wonderful composition? Is it surprising
that the plan for the merger quite slipped out of my head?"

"Talking of exquisite coloring," interrupted Hadley irrelevantly, "did
you notice how well Maude looked last night? If she's a day, that
woman is forty, yet no one would take her for more than five and
twenty. She's a marvel. No wonder Stanton is crazy about her."

Stafford shrugged his shoulders.

"Cosmetics and a clever hairdresser can work miracles," he said dryly.

"She's a wonder, just the same--especially when you consider the life
she's led. You know her history--a morphine fiend with the face of an
angel