out I'd slipped out of his clutches an' swung all my business
over to Bronson's bank he never by so much as a word or a look let on
that he even noticed it. They still have an account at the store; they
can't help it, because no other store in Terrace City keeps the stock
we do. But Mrs. Orcutt does all her real shoppin' in New York or
Chicago."

II

Oskar Hedin loved fur, and the romance of fur. From his earliest
recollection he had loved it as he had curled up and listened to the
stories of his father, a great upstanding Viking of a sailor man, who
year after year had forced his little vessel into the far North where
he traded with the natives, and who had lost his life in the ice floes
of the frozen sea while sailing with Nordenskjold.

Furs were to Hedin an obsession; they spoke a language he knew. He
hated the grosser furs, as he loved the finer. He despised the trade
tricks and spurious trade names by which the flimsiest of furs are
foisted upon the gullible purchasers of "seal," "sable," "black fox,"
"ermine," and "beaver." He prided himself that no misnamed fur had
ever passed over his counter, and in this he was backed up by his
employer. The cheaper furs were there, but they sold under their true
names and upon their merits.

In the social democracy of the town of twenty thousand people Oskar
Hedin had earned a definite place. After graduating from the local
high school he had entered the employ of McNabb, and within a very few
years had been promoted to head his department. At the Country Club he
could be depended upon to qualify with the first flight in the annual
golf tournament, and the "dope" was all upset when he did not play in
the finals on the courts. He lived at the city's only "family hotel,"
drove his own modest car, and religiously spent his Sundays on the
trout streams.

Hedin picked up the coat and reverently deposited it in the fur safe.
"It's a coat fit for a queen," he decided as he closed and locked the
door. And Jean was the one woman in the world to wear it. Jean with
the red blood coursing through her veins, her glow of health, and the
sparkle of her eyes--McNabb's own daughter. "And, yet, I can't suggest
it because--" Hedin muttered aloud and scowled at the floor. "I'd have
asked her before this," he went on, "if that Wentworth hadn't butted
in. Who knows anything about him, anyway? I'll ask her this
afternoon." He stopped abruptly and smiled into the eyes o