e alike
futile. Like many another overzealous partisan, he had made for Kate one
more enemy.

* * * * *

It seemed aeons ago to Mrs. Toomey that Jap had appeared to her in the
light of a handsome conquering daredevil, whose dash and confident
personality made all things possible.

The real test of Toomey's character had come with his misfortunes. So
long as he had money to spend and could ride, arrogant and high-handed,
over the obsequious shopkeepers who benefited by his prodigality, and
the poor ranchers who had not the means, or often the spirit, to oppose
him, he continued to appear to her in the light in which she had first
seen him. She adored his imperious temper, his erratic lavish
generosity, his Quixotic standards, but with the reversal of their
fortunes she was slowly brought to realize that money had provided most
of the glamor which surrounded him. To be imperious with no one to obey
makes for absurdity, and this trait, in his poverty, made him
ridiculous, as did the extravagances in which he indulged at the expense
of necessities.

It was not often Mrs. Toomey would admit to herself the real cause of
the heartsickness which filled her as she watched her husband
deteriorate, but with every excuse known to a woman who loves she tried
to bolster up her waning faith in the man and his ability. With an
obstinacy which was pathetic, she endeavored to keep him on the
pedestal where she had placed him. She listened with a fixed smile of
interest to the extraordinary schemes he outlined to her, sometimes
hypnotizing herself into believing in them, until he returned with the
exaggerated swagger which proclaimed another failure. Then she would
join him in his denunciation of those who could not see the value of his
plan and refused to aid him.

But the conviction that Jap had not the qualities to win material
success did not hurt as did the knowledge that he was not too brave to
lie, too proud to borrow from those he considered his social inferiors
and with no notion of repaying the obligation, nor too honest to obtain
money by any subterfuge that occurred to him.

When she had attempted to borrow money from Abram Pantin, the light
esteem in which that astute person held her husband had been as painful
as her disappointment, for it was her first definite knowledge of
others' estimate of him. Since then, with her eyes opened, she had come
to see that Jap was regarded in