el, rested on her silently. After all, she was twenty-seven,
and must take her portion of life's responsibilities. Besides, whatever
she might have to bear he meant to share with her. She should not be
obliged, like Rosie Fay, for instance, to carry her load alone.

And yet she didn't look as if she would shirk her part. With that tall,
erect figure, delicate in outline but strong with the freedom of an
open-air life, that proud head which was nevertheless carried meekly,
and that straightforward gaze, she gave the impression of being ready to
meet anything. The face might be irregular, lacking in many of the
tender prettinesses as natural to other girls, even at twenty-seven, as
flowers to a field; but no one could deny its force of character.

"I'll tell you something you could do," he said, at last. "You could
see--or try to see--that he doesn't spend too much." A slight pause
marked his hesitation before adding, "That no one spends too much."

"You mean mamma and me?"

He smiled faintly. "I mean whoever does the spending--but your father
most of all, because I'm afraid he's rather reckless. He's spent a good
deal during the last twelve or fifteen years, hasn't he?"

She was very quick. "More than he had a right to spend?"

"Well, more than my father," he felt it safe to say.

"But he had more than your father to spend, hadn't he?"

"Do you know that for a certainty?"

"I only know it from papa himself. But, oh, Thor, what is it? Why are
you asking?"

He ignored these questions to say: "Couldn't your mother tell us? After
all, it was her money, wasn't it?"

She shook her head. "Oh, mamma wouldn't know. If you're in any doubt
about it, why don't you ask Mr. Masterman? He could tell you better than
any one. Besides, mamma isn't in."

He spoke with a touch of scorn. "I suppose she's in town."

The tone evoked on Lois's part a little smile. They had had battles on
the subject before. "That's just where she is."

"That's just where she always is."

"Oh no; not always. Sometimes she stays at home. But she's there pretty
often, I admit. She has to make calls, partly because I won't--when I
can help it."

He spoke approvingly. "You, at any rate, don't fritter away your time
like other women."

"It depends on what other women you mean. I fritter away my time like
some women, even though it isn't like the women who make calls. I play
golf, for instance, and tennis; I even ride."

"All the same, you don't