gum-shoe
work, Starratt... You'd better go awful slow."

With the coming of May other anxieties claimed Starratt's attention.
Bills that he had forgotten or neglected began to pour in. There was
his tailor bill, long overdue, and two accounts with dry-goods stores
that Helen had run up in the days when the certainty of a fixed salary
income had seemed sure. A dentist bill for work done in December made
its appearance and, of course, the usual household expenditures went
merrily on. The rent of their apartment was raised. Collections were
slow. In March the commissions on collected premiums had just about
paid the office rent and the telephone... April showed up better, but
May, of course, held great promise. At the end of May the Hilmer
premiums would be due and the firm of Starratt & Co. on its feet, with
over two thousand dollars in commissions actually in hand. On the
strength of these prospects Helen began to order a new outfit. Fred
Starratt did not have the heart to complain. Helen had earned every
stitch of clothing that she was buying--there was no doubt about that;
still, he would have liked to be less hasty in her expenditures. He
had been too long in business to count much on prospects. He disliked
borrowing more money from Brauer, but there was no alternative. Brauer
fell to grumbling quite audibly over these advances, and he saw to it
that Fred's notes for the amounts always were forthcoming. Hilmer did
not come in quite so often to the office; a rush of shipbuilding
construction took him over to his yards in Oakland nearly every day.
But Mrs. Hilmer was in evidence a good deal. Helen was constantly
calling her up and asking her to drop downtown for luncheon or for a
bit of noonday shopping uptown or just for a talk.

"She's a dear!" Helen used to say to Fred. "And I just love her to
death..."

Fred could not fathom Helen. A year ago he felt sure that Mrs. Hilmer
was the last woman in the world that Helen would have found bearable,
much less attractive... He concluded that Helen was enjoying the
novelty of watching Mrs. Hilmer nibble at a discreet feminine
frivolity to which she was unaccustomed. After a while he looked for
outward changes in Mrs. Hilmer's make-up. He figured that the shopping
tours with Helen might be reflected in a sprightlier bonnet or a
narrower skirt or a higher heel on her shoe. But no such
transformation took place. Indeed, her costuming seemed to grow more
and more uncompromisin