he Marshes'
guests.

He returned the letter as the waitress brought their food.

"Wouldn't it be nice to take a trip home?" Hazel suggested
thoughtfully. "I'd love to."

"We are going home," Bill reminded gently.

"Oh, of course," she smiled. "But I mean to Granville. I'd like to go
back there with you for a while, just to--just to--"

"To show 'em," he supplied laconically.

"Oh, Bill!" she pouted.

Nevertheless, she could not deny that there was a measure of truth in
his brief remark. She did want to "show 'em." Bill's vernacular
expressed it exactly. She had compassed success in a manner that
Granville--and especially that portion of Granville which she knew and
which knew her--could appreciate and understand and envy according to
its individual tendencies.

She looked across the table at her husband, and thought to herself with
proud satisfaction that she had done well. Viewed from any angle
whatsoever, Bill Wagstaff stood head and shoulders above all the men
she had ever known. Big, physically and mentally, clean-minded and
capable--indubitably she had captured a lion, and, though she might
have denied stoutly the imputation, she wanted Granville to see her
lion and hear him roar.

Whether they realize the fact or not, to the average individual, male
or female, reflected glory is better than none at all. And when two
people stand in the most intimate relation to each other, the success
of one lends a measure of its luster to the other. Those who had been
so readily impressed by Andrew Bush's device to singe her social wings
with the flame of gossip had long since learned their mistake. She had
the word of Loraine Marsh and Jack Barrow that they were genuinely
sorry for having been carried away by appearances. And she could nail
her colors to the mast if she came home the wife of a man like Bill
Wagstaff, who could wrest a fortune from the wilderness in a briefer
span of time than it took most men to make current expenses. Hazel was
quite too human to refuse a march triumphal if it came her way. She
had left Granville in bitterness of spirit, and some of that bitterness
required balm.

"Still thinking Granville?" Bill queried, when they had finished an
uncommonly silent meal.

Hazel flushed slightly. She was, and momentarily she felt that she
should have been thinking of their little nest up by Pine River Pass
instead. She knew that Bill was homing to the cabin. She herself
regarded