ance of nearly three dollars.

In itself, this small sum seemed a fortune. Immediately on recovering
his clothes he had gone to see Ruth, and on the way he could not refrain
from jingling the little handful of silver in his pocket. He had been so
long without money that, like a rescued starving man who cannot let the
unconsumed food out of his sight, Martin could not keep his hand off the
silver. He was not mean, nor avaricious, but the money meant more than
so many dollars and cents. It stood for success, and the eagles stamped
upon the coins were to him so many winged victories.

It came to him insensibly that it was a very good world. It certainly
appeared more beautiful to him. For weeks it had been a very dull and
sombre world; but now, with nearly all debts paid, three dollars jingling
in his pocket, and in his mind the consciousness of success, the sun
shone bright and warm, and even a rain-squall that soaked unprepared
pedestrians seemed a merry happening to him. When he starved, his
thoughts had dwelt often upon the thousands he knew were starving the
world over; but now that he was feasted full, the fact of the thousands
starving was no longer pregnant in his brain. He forgot about them, and,
being in love, remembered the countless lovers in the world. Without
deliberately thinking about it, motifs for love-lyrics began to agitate
his brain. Swept away by the creative impulse, he got off the electric
car, without vexation, two blocks beyond his crossing.

He found a number of persons in the Morse home. Ruth's two girl-cousins
were visiting her from San Rafael, and Mrs. Morse, under pretext of
entertaining them, was pursuing her plan of surrounding Ruth with young
people. The campaign had begun during Martin's enforced absence, and was
already in full swing. She was making a point of having at the house men
who were doing things. Thus, in addition to the cousins Dorothy and
Florence, Martin encountered two university professors, one of Latin, the
other of English; a young army officer just back from the Philippines,
one-time school-mate of Ruth's; a young fellow named Melville, private
secretary to Joseph Perkins, head of the San Francisco Trust Company; and
finally of the men, a live bank cashier, Charles Hapgood, a youngish man
of thirty-five, graduate of Stanford University, member of the Nile Club
and the Unity Club, and a conservative speaker for the Republican Party
during campaigns--in sho