fully responsible for this dreadful state of affairs, I
would most certainly stand from under!"

He turned from the 'phone and beheld Mrs. Daney, alert of countenance
and fairly pop-eyed with excitement. She grasped her husband by the
arm.

"You have a private line from the mill office to The Dreamerie," she
reminded him. "Have the call run in on your office telephone, then
call Mrs. McKaye, and switch her in. We can listen on the office
extensions."

Upon his spouse Mr. Daney bent a look of profound contempt.

"When I consider the loyalty, the love, the forebearance, and
Christian charity that have been necessary to restrain me from tearing
asunder that which God, in a careless moment, joined together, Mary,
I'm inclined to regard myself as four-fifths superman and the other
fifth pure angel," he declared coldly. "This is something you're not
in on, woman, and I hope the strain of your curiosity will make you
sick for a week."

He seized his hat and fled, leaving his wife to shed bitter, scalding
tears at his cruel words. Poor thing! She prided herself upon being
the possessor of a superior brand of virtue and was always quick to
take refuge in tears when any one decried that virtue; indeed, she
never felt quite so virtuous as when she clothed herself, so to speak,
in an atmosphere of patient resignation to insult and misunderstanding.
People who delude themselves into the belief that they can camouflage
their own nastiness and weaknesses from discovery by intelligent
persons are the bane of existence, and in his better half poor Daney
had a heavy cross to bear.

He left the house wishing he might dare to bawl aloud with anguish at
the knowledge that he was yoked for life to a woman of whom he was
secretly ashamed; he wished he might dare to get fearfully intoxicated
and remain in that condition for a long time. In his youth, he had
been shy and retiring, always envying the favor which the ladies
appeared to extend to the daring devils of his acquaintance;
consequently, his prenuptial existence had not been marked by any
memorable amourous experiences, for where other young men sowed wild
oats Mr. Daney planted a sweet forget-me-not. As a married man, he was
a model of respectability--sacrosanct, almost. His idea of worldly
happiness consisted in knowing that he was a solid, trustworthy
business man, of undoubted years and discretion, whom no human being
could blackmail. Now, as he fled from the odor of respec