rm in the fall, and a lot of
other men from the class would come down then after a long rest between
college and tackling the world on twenty dollars a month. Wandel alone
of George's intimates rested irresolute. George, since he had taken two
rooms and a bath in the apartment house in which Wandel lived, saw him
frequently. He could easily afford that luxury, for each summer his
balance had grown, and Blodgett, now that he had George for as long as
he could keep him, was paying him handsomely, and flattering him by
drawing on the store of special knowledge his extended and difficult
application had hoarded.

To live in such a house, moreover, was necessary to his campaign, which,
he admitted, had lagged alarmingly. Sylvia had continued to avoid him.
She seemed to possess a special sense for the houses and the parties
where he would be, and when, in spite of this, they did meet, she tried
to impress him with a thorough indifference; or, if she couldn't avoid a
dance, with a rigid repulsion that failed to harmonize with her warm
colouring and her exquisite femininity.

Through some means he had to get on. His restless apprehension had
grown. Her departure for Europe with her mother fed the rumours that
from time to time had connected her name with eligible men. It was even
hinted now that her mother's eyesight, which reached to social greatness
across the Atlantic, was responsible for her celibacy.

"There'll be an announcement before she comes back," the gossip ran.
"They'll land a museum piece of a title."

George didn't know about that, but he did realize that unless he could
progress, one day a rumour would take body. He resented bitterly her
absence this summer, but if things would carry on until the fall he
would manage, he promised himself, to get ahead with Sylvia.

Wandel seemed to enjoy having George near, for, irresolute as he was, he
spent practically the entire summer in town. George, one night when they
had returned from two hours' suffering of a summer show, asked him the
reason. They smoked in Wandel's library.

"I can look around better here," was all Wandel would say.

"But Driggs! Those precious talents!"

Wandel stretched himself in an easy chair.

"What would you suggest, great man?"

George laughed.

"Do you write poetry in secret--the big, wicked, and suffering city,
seen from a tenth-story window overlooking a pretty park?"

Vehemently Wandel shook his head.

"You know what most of