he lifted it up beneath his arm, around which, for one ecstatic
moment, she clasped her other hand, and together they went out into
the hall, Bobby, simply driveling in his supreme happiness, allowing
her to lead him wheresoever she listed. Still in the joy of knowing
that his one dreaded rival was removed in so pleasant a fashion, he
handed her into the automobile and they started out to see Mr.
Chalmers. Their way led down Grand Street, past the John Burnit Store,
and with all that had happened still rankling sorely in his mind,
Bobby looked up and gave a gasp. Workmen were taking down the plain,
dignified old sign of the John Burnit Store from the top of the
building, and in its place they were raising up a glittering new one,
ordered by Silas Trimmer on the very day Bobby had agreed to go into
the consolidation; and it read:

"TRIMMER AND COMPANY"

CHAPTER VII

PINK-CHEEKED APPLEROD RUSHES TO THE RESCUE WITH A GOLDEN SCHEME

Agnes had been surprised into an exclamation of dismay by that new
sign, but she checked it abruptly as she saw Bobby's face. She could
divine, but she could not fully know, how that had hurt him; how the
pain of it had sunk into his soul; how the humiliation of it had
tingled in every fiber of him. For an instant his breath had stopped,
his heart had swelled as if it would burst, a great lump had come in
his throat, a sob almost tore its way through his clenched teeth. He
caught his breath sharply, his jaws set and his nostrils dilated, then
the color came slowly back to his cheeks. Agnes, though longing to do
so, had feared to lay her hand even upon his sleeve in sympathy lest
she might unman him, but now she saw that she need not have feared. It
had not weakened him, this blow; it had strengthened him.

"That's brutal," he said steadily, though the steadiness was purely a
matter of will. "We must change that sign before we do anything else."

"Of course," she answered simply.

Involuntarily she stretched out her small gloved hand, and with it
touched his own. Looking back once more for a fleeting glimpse at the
ascending symbol of his defeat, he gripped her hand so hard that she
almost cried out with the pain of it; but she did not wince. When he
suddenly remembered, with a frightened apology, and laid her hand upon
her lap and patted it, her fingers seemed as if they had been
compressed into a numb mass, and she separated them slowly and with
difficult