in need of the
simoleons, are you going to do? You're going to draw the shoes--and
the pay cheque. Now I think I can get you started that way, on
catalogue work and ad. cuts. Try your pencil on something--anything at
all--and bring down a few samples."

So Irene's little studio room began to take on a practical purpose. It
was work which called for form and proportion rather than colour, and
in these Irene excelled. She soon found herself with as much as she
could do, in addition to the duties of the household, as maids were
luxuries which could no longer be afforded, and her mother seemed
unable to realize that they were not still living in the affluence of
Dr. Hardy's income. To Irene, therefore, fell the work of the house,
as well as its support. But her success in earning a living did not
seem in the slightest degree to clear the way for marriage. She could
not ask Dave to assume the support of her mother; particularly in view
of Mrs. Hardy's behaviour toward him, she could not ask that. She
sometimes wondered if Conward-- For a long while she refused to
complete the thought, but at length, why not? Why shouldn't Conward
marry her mother? And what other purpose could he have in his
continuous visits to their home? Mrs. Hardy, although no longer young,
had by ho means surrendered all the attractions of her sex, and Conward
was slipping by the period where a young girl would be his natural
mate. If they should marry--Irene was no plotter, but it did seem that
such a match would clear the way for all concerned. She was surprised,
when she turned it over in her mind, to realize that Conward had won
for himself such a place in her regard that she could contemplate such
a consummation as very much to be desired. Subconsciously, rather than
from specific motive, she assumed a still more friendly attitude toward
him.

Bert Morrison's confession had, however, set up another very insistent
train of thought in Irene's mind. She realized that Bert, with all her
show of cynicism and masculinity, was really a very womanly young
woman, with just the training and the insight into life that would make
her almost irresistible should she enter the matrimonial market. And
Bert and Dave were already good friends; very good friends indeed, as
Irene suspected from fragments of conversation which either of them
dropped from time to time. Although she never doubted the singleness
of Dave's devotion she sometimes suspect