The day after the bills were posted, Archey went around to see how they
were being received.

"It was a good idea," he told Mary the next morning, but she noticed that
he looked troubled and absent-minded, as though his thoughts weren't in
his words.

"What's the matter, Archey?" she quietly asked.

"Oh, I don't know," he said, and with the least possible touch of
irritation he added, "Sometimes I think it's because I don't like him.
Everything that counts against him sticks--and I may have been mistaken
anyway--"

"It's something about Burdon," thought Mary, and in the same quiet voice
as before she said,

"What is it, Archey?"

"Well," he said, hesitating, "I went out after dinner last night--to see
if they were reading the bill-boards. I thought I'd walk down Jay
Street--that's where the strikers have their headquarters. I was walking
along when all at once I thought I saw Burdon's old car turning a corner
ahead of me.

"It stopped in front of Repetti's pool-room. Two men came out and got in.

"A little while later I was speaking to one of our men and he said some
rough actors were drifting in town and he didn't like the way they were
talking. I asked him where these men were making their headquarters and
he said, 'Repetti's Pool Room.'"

Mary thought that over.

"Mind you, I wouldn't swear it was Burdon's old car," said Archey, more
troubled than before. "I can only tell you I'm sure of it--and I might be
mistaken at that. And even if it was Burdon, he'd only say that he had
gone there to try to keep the strike from spreading--yes, and he might be
right at that," he added, desperately trying to be fair, "but--well, he
worries me--that's all."

He was worrying Mary, too, although for a different reason.

With increasing frequency, Helen was coming home from the Country Club
unconsciously scented with that combination of cigarette smoke and
raspberry jam. Burdon had a new car, a swift, piratical craft which had
been built to his order, and sometimes when he called at the house on the
hill for Helen, Mary amused herself by thinking that he only needed a
little flag-pole and a Jolly Roger--a skirted coat and a feathered
hat--and he would be the typical younger son of romance, scouring the
main in search of Spanish gold.

Occasionally when he rolled to the door, Wally's car was already there,
for Wally--after an absence--was again coming around, pale and in need of
sympathy, singing his tenor songs to He