ith but one of bitter
enmity. He had about made up his mind that a fresh stenographer every
morning was all he could hope for, when Jennie became his Scheherazade.
By the time the war broke out she was as indispensable to him as his
hands. He had made her an officer of the company and paid her a salary of
six thousand dollars a year, but she went on remembering his engagements,
writing his letters and soothing the outraged feelings of his clients
just as she had done in humbler days. She was, in the good, old-fashioned
sense, his better half. Her amusement was the stock market and she played
it cannily and with considerable success with his rather diabolic
encouragement.

She was in New York when March got home, and he saw her for the first
time since his return at his father's house on a Sunday morning more
than a fortnight after the evening at the Wollastons' when Paula had
sung his songs.

It was his first appearance anywhere since the afternoon in Novelli's
studio when he had shown his opera to La Chaise and Paula. It had been
agreed among them that with certain important changes, it would make an
admirable vehicle for Paula's return to the operatic stage, and being a
small affair from the producer's point of view, involving only one
interior set, would be practicable for production during the summer at
Ravinia in case the project for Paula's singing there went through. March
had agreed to the changes and withdrawn into his stronghold over the
grocery store with a determination not more than to come up for air until
he had worried the thing into the shape they wanted.

He didn't know it was Sunday--having attributed the peacefulness he
found pervading Fullerton Avenue to his own good conscience, a purely
subjective phenomenon--until in the parlor of his father's house the
sight of his brother Ben at the piano playing a soundless tune upon
the tops of the keys, brought it home to him. When he inquired for the
rest of the family, he learned that they were up-stairs getting ready
for church.

"I hope," he said, with a grin at his younger brother, "that you aren't
suffering from that old hebdomadal sore throat of yours."

"No, it's all right," Ben said, declining though to be amused. "I've got
a gentleman's agreement with Sarah. Every other Sunday. Father's well
enough satisfied now if he gets one of us. When they're all gone, I can
slip out and buy a Sunday paper--jazz up the piano--have a regular orgy.
Every oth