a movie actor and--And here I've
told him a hundred times, if he'll go to college and law-school and
make good, I'll set him up in business and--Verona just exactly as bad.
Doesn't know what she wants. Well, well, come on! Aren't you ready yet?
The girl rang the bell three minutes ago."

V

Before he followed his wife, Babbitt stood at the westernmost window of
their room. This residential settlement, Floral Heights, was on a rise;
and though the center of the city was three miles away--Zenith had
between three and four hundred thousand inhabitants now--he could see
the top of the Second National Tower, an Indiana limestone building of
thirty-five stories.

Its shining walls rose against April sky to a simple cornice like a
streak of white fire. Integrity was in the tower, and decision. It
bore its strength lightly as a tall soldier. As Babbitt stared,
the nervousness was soothed from his face, his slack chin lifted in
reverence. All he articulated was "That's one lovely sight!" but he was
inspired by the rhythm of the city; his love of it renewed. He beheld
the tower as a temple-spire of the religion of business, a faith
passionate, exalted, surpassing common men; and as he clumped down to
breakfast he whistled the ballad "Oh, by gee, by gosh, by jingo" as
though it were a hymn melancholy and noble.

CHAPTER II

RELIEVED of Babbitt's bumbling and the soft grunts with which his wife
expressed the sympathy she was too experienced to feel and much
too experienced not to show, their bedroom settled instantly into
impersonality.

It gave on the sleeping-porch. It served both of them as dressing-room,
and on the coldest nights Babbitt luxuriously gave up the duty of being
manly and retreated to the bed inside, to curl his toes in the warmth
and laugh at the January gale.

The room displayed a modest and pleasant color-scheme, after one of the
best standard designs of the decorator who "did the interiors" for most
of the speculative-builders' houses in Zenith. The walls were gray, the
woodwork white, the rug a serene blue; and very much like mahogany was
the furniture--the bureau with its great clear mirror, Mrs. Babbitt's
dressing-table with toilet-articles of almost solid silver, the plain
twin beds, between them a small table holding a standard electric
bedside lamp, a glass for water, and a standard bedside book
with colored illustrations--what particular book it was cannot be
ascertained, since no one