ous of the striking of his
feet on the wood floors.

At Christmas a revival of spirit overtook him; a long letter came from
Mariana, Bundy Provost sent him a tall silver tankard, with a lid, for
his night table. Howat, polishing his glass with a maroon bandanna, read
Mariana's letter in the yellow light of the lamp and burning logs.

"I have been to see a new steel process," she wrote; "the Duplex, with
immense tilting furnaces and the Bessemer blast. I know a great deal
about iron now; far more than a Howat Penny who should be an authority.
Jim is frightfully busy, but lately he has been able to sleep after the
night shift, which makes it better for every one. He is one of the best
men here, and that comes from the Works, and the reorganization is
slowly but surely progressing, and we are progressing with it. I am not
a particle lonely, with only one servant; really don't want another,
and make a great deal more than desserts. You have no idea how
absorbing it is to have a lot of things that must be done. The days
simply fade. You mustn't worry about me, Howat; I always hated polite
affairs and parties and people; even when I was young as possible I was
more than anything else a Hell in the Corner."

He smiled, recognizing an old flippant phrase, and let his hand drop
while he recalled Mariana--turning to him to hook her gown, constructing
annoying towers with the dominoes, reprehensible and amusing. He resumed
reading:

"It would be wonderful if--no, it is wonderful! But Howat, I can tell
only you this, I wish oranges had never been invented." He drew his
mouth into a compressed line. James was drinking. He remembered when the
other first made the concoction of orange juice and brandy; he saw him
clearly, leaning in the doorway to the dining room, with the emptied
goblet, and a curious, introspective expression on his mobile
countenance. "He ought to be hung!" he exclaimed sharply. The fellow
should see himself as a mat for Mariana's feet. But that wasn't life, he
realized; existence seemed to become more and more heedless of the
proprieties, of the simplest concessions to duty. He saw the world as a
ship which, admirably navigated a score or more years ago, had jammed
its rudder. No one could predict what rocks the unmanageable sphere
might be driving for.

The significance born by that sentence robbed the remainder of the
letter of pleasure. He read that Mariana had ordered the customary gift
of cigarettes, an