lled more
easily with the wind behind him, Demorest, dismissing abruptly all other
subjects, laid his hand with brusque familiarity on his companion's
knee, and as if the hour for social and confidential greeting had only
just then arrived, said: "Well, Neddy, old boy, how are you getting on?"

"So, so," said Blandford, dubiously. "You see," he began,
argumentatively, "in my business there's a good deal of competition, and
I was only saying this morning--"

But either Demorest was already familiar with his friend's arguments,
or had as usual exhausted his topic, for without paying the slightest
attention to him, he again demanded abruptly, "Why don't you go to
California? Here everything's played out. That's the country for a young
man like you--just starting into life, and without incumbrances. If I
was free and fixed in my family affairs like you I'd go to-morrow."

There was such an occult positivism in Demorest's manner that for an
instant Blandford, who had been married two years, and was transacting
a steady and fairly profitable manufacturing business in the adjacent
town, actually believed he was more fitted for adventurous speculation
than the grimly erratic man of energetic impulses and pleasures beside
him. He managed to stammer hesitatingly:

"But there's Joan--she--"

"Nonsense! Let her stay with her mother; you sell out your interest
in the business, put the money into an assorted cargo, and clap it and
yourself into the first ship out of Boston--and there you are. You've
been married going on two years now, and a little separation until
you've built up a business out there, won't do either of you any harm."

Blandford, who was very much in love with his wife, was not, however,
above putting the onus of embarrassing affection upon HER. "You don't
know, Joan, Dick," he replied. "She'd never consent to a separation,
even for a short time."

"Try her. She's a sensible woman--a deuced sight more than you are. You
don't understand women, Ned. That's what's the matter with you."

It required all of Blandford's fond memories of his wife's conservative
habits, Puritan practicality, religious domesticity, and strong family
attachments, to withstand Demorest's dogmatic convictions. He smiled,
however, with a certain complacency, as he also recalled the previous
autumn when the first news of the California gold discovery had
penetrated North Liberty, and he had expressed to her his belief that it
would offer