his reconciliation with her they were married
in Grace Church, because Beaton had once seen a marriage there, and had
intended to paint a picture of it some time.

Nothing in these fervid fantasies prevented his responding with due
dryness to Fulkerson's cheery "Hello, old man!" when he found himself
in the building fitted up for the 'Every Other Week' office. Fulkerson's
room was back of the smaller one occupied by the bookkeeper; they had
been respectively the reception-room and dining-room of the little place
in its dwelling-house days, and they had been simply and tastefully
treated in their transformation into business purposes. The narrow
old trim of the doors and windows had been kept, and the quaintly
ugly marble mantels. The architect had said, Better let them stay they
expressed epoch, if not character.

"Well, have you come round to go to work? Just hang up your coat on the
floor anywhere," Fulkerson went on.

"I've come to bring you that letter," said Beaton, all the more
haughtily because he found that Fulkerson was not alone when he welcomed
him in these free and easy terms. There was a quiet-looking man, rather
stout, and a little above the middle height, with a full, close-cropped
iron-gray beard, seated beyond the table where Fulkerson tilted himself
back, with his knees set against it; and leaning against the mantel
there was a young man with a singularly gentle face, in which the look
of goodness qualified and transfigured a certain simplicity. His large
blue eyes were somewhat prominent; and his rather narrow face was drawn
forward in a nose a little too long perhaps, if it had not been for the
full chin deeply cut below the lip, and jutting firmly forward.

"Introduce you to Mr. March, our editor, Mr. Beaton," Fulkerson said,
rolling his head in the direction of the elder man; and then nodding
it toward the younger, he said, "Mr. Dryfoos, Mr. Beaton." Beaton shook
hands with March, and then with Mr. Dryfoos, and Fulkerson went on,
gayly: "We were just talking of you, Beaton--well, you know the old
saying. Mr. March, as I told you, is our editor, and Mr. Dryfoos has
charge of the publishing department--he's the counting-room incarnate,
the source of power, the fountain of corruption, the element that
prevents journalism being the high and holy thing that it would be if
there were no money in it." Mr. Dryfoos turned his large, mild eyes upon
Beaton, and laughed with the uneasy concession which peop