e any social demands. And wedding presents! If one more
friend of mine is married--"

He would get out his checkbook and write a check slowly and
thoughtfully. And tearing it off would say:

"Now remember, Nina, this is for Christmas. Don't feel aggrieved when
the time comes and you have no gift from us."

But he knew that when the time came Margaret, his wife, would hold out
almost to the end, and then slip into a jeweler's and buy Nina something
she simply couldn't do without.

It wasn't quite fair, he felt. It wasn't fair to Jim or to Elizabeth.
Particularly to Elizabeth.

Sometimes he looked at Elizabeth with a little prayer in his heart,
never articulate, that life would be good to her; that she might keep
her illusions and her dreams; that the soundness and wholesomeness of
her might keep her from unhappiness. Sometimes, as she sat reading or
sewing, with the light behind her shining through her soft hair, he saw
in her a purity that was almost radiant.

He was in arms at once a night or two before Dick had invited Elizabeth
to go to the theater when Margaret Wheeler said:

"The house was gayer when Nina was at home."

"Yes. And you were pretty sick of it. Full of roistering young idiots.
Piano and phonograph going at once, pairs of gigglers in the pantry
at the refrigerator, pairs on the stairs and on the verandah,
cigar-ashes--my cigars--and cigarettes over everything, and more
infernal spooning going on than I've ever seen in my life."

He had resumed his newspaper, to put it down almost at once.

"What's that Sayre boy hanging around for?"

"I think he's in love with her, Walter."

"Love? Any of the Sayre tribe? Jim Sayre drank himself to death, and
this boy is like him. And Jim Sayre wasn't faithful to his wife. This
boy is--well, he's an heir. That's why he was begotten."

Margaret Wheeler stared at him.

"Why, Walter!" she said. "He's a nice boy, and he's a gentleman."

"Why? Because he gets up when you come into the room? Why in
heaven's name don't you encourage real men to come here? There's Dick
Livingstone. He's a man."

Margaret hesitated.

"Walter, have you ever thought there was anything queer about Dick
Livingstone's coming here?"

"Darned good for the town that he did come."

"But--nobody ever dreamed that David and Lucy had a nephew. Then he
turns up, and they send him to medical college, and all that."

"I've got some relations I haven't notified the town I possess," he s