ature as lazy, luxurious, and self-indulgent physically as she
was alert and industrious mentally. From October to July she ate and
drank about what she pleased, never set foot upon the ground if she could
help it, and held her tendency to hips in check by daily massage. From
July to October she walked two or three hours a day, heavily dressed, and
had a woman especially to attend to her hair and complexion, in addition
to the _masseuse_ toiling to keep her cheeks and throat firm for the
fight against wrinkles and loss of contour.

Arthur frowned at the interruption, then smoothed his features into a
cordial smile; and at once that ugly mass of precipitated poison began to
redistribute itself and hide itself from him.

"You've had a fall, haven't you?"

He flushed. She, judging with the supersensitive vanity of all her
self-conscious "set," thought the flush was at the implied criticism of
his skill; but he was far too good a rider to care about his
misadventure, and it was her unconscious double meaning that stung him.
She turned; they walked together. After a brief debate as to the time for
confessing his "fall," which, at best, could remain a secret no longer
than Monday, he chose the present. "Father's begun to cut up rough," said
he, and his manner was excellent. "He's taken away my allowance, and I'm
to go to work at the mill." He was yielding to the insidious influence of
her presence, was dropping rapidly back toward the attitude as well as
the accent of "our set."

At his frank disclosure Mrs. Whitney congratulated herself on her
shrewdness so heartily that she betrayed it in her face; but Arthur did
not see. "I suppose your mother can do nothing with him." This was spoken
in a tone of conviction. She always felt that, if she had had Hiram to
deal with, she would have been fully as successful with him as she
thought she had been with Charles Whitney. She did not appreciate the
fundamental difference in the characters of the two men. Both were iron
of will; but there was in Whitney--and not in Hiram--a selfishness that
took the form of absolute indifference to anything and everything which
did not directly concern himself--his business or his physical comfort.
Thus his wife had had her way in all matters of the social career, and he
would have forced upon her the whole responsibility for the children if
she had not spared him the necessity by assuming it. He cheerfully paid
the bills, no matter what they were