hat he defined as social tommyrot, and he drew it
more and more sharply.

Sometimes Hazel caught herself wondering if they were getting as much
out of the holiday as they should have gotten, as they had planned to
get when they were struggling through that interminable winter. _She_
was. But not Bill. And while she wished that he could get the same
satisfaction out of his surroundings and opportunities as she conceived
herself to be getting, she often grew impatient with his sardonic,
tolerant contempt toward the particular set she mostly consorted with.
If she ventured to give a tea, he fled the house as if from the plague.
He made acquaintances of his own, men from God only knew where,
individuals who occasionally filled the dainty apartment with
malodorous tobacco fumes, and who would cheerfully sit up all night
discoursing earnestly on any subject under the sun. But so long as
Bill found Granville habitable she did not mind.

Above all, as the winter and the winter gayety set in together with
equal vigor, she thought with greater reluctance of the ultimate return
to that hushed, deep-forested area that surrounded the cabin.

She wished fervently that Bill would take up some business that would
keep him in touch with civilization. He had the capital, she
considered, and there was no question of his ability. Her faith in his
power to encompass whatever he set about was strong. Other men, less
gifted, had acquired wealth, power, even a measure of fame, from a less
auspicious beginning. Why not he?

It seemed absurd to bury one's self in an uninhabited waste, when life
held forth so much to be grasped. Her friends told her so--thus
confirming her own judgment. But she could never quite bring herself
to put it in so many words to Bill.

CHAPTER XXVI

A BUSINESS PROPOSITION

The cycle of weeks brought them to January. They had dropped into
something of a routine in their daily lives. Bill's interest and
participation in social affairs became negligible. Of Hazel's circle
he classed some half dozen people as desirable acquaintances, and saw
more or less of them--Kitty Brooks and her husband; Vesta Lorimer, a
keen-witted young woman upon whom nature had bestowed a double portion
of physical attractiveness and a talent akin to genius for the painting
of miniatures; her Brother Paul, who was the silent partner in a
brokerage firm; Doctor Hart, a silent, grim-visaged physician, whose
vivacious wife