do uptown.
Why, I know a little restaurant down there where a dollar looks as big
as ten."

"Don, dear, you're living too much downtown," she exclaimed somewhat
petulantly. "You don't realize it, but you are. It's making you
different--and I don't want you different. I want you just as you used
to be."

She fell back upon a straight appeal--an appeal of eyes and arms and
lips.

"I miss you awfully in the afternoons," she went on, "but I'll admit
that can't be helped. I'll give up that much of you. But after dinner
I claim you. You're mine after dinner, Don."

She was very tender and beautiful in this mood. When he saw her like
this, nothing else seemed to matter. There was no downtown or uptown;
there was only she. There was nothing to do but stoop and kiss her
eager lips. Which is exactly what he did.

For a moment she allowed it, and then with an excited laugh freed
herself.

"Please to give me one of your cards, Don," she said.

He handed her a card, and she wrote upon it this:--

"_December sixteenth, Moore cotillion_."

CHAPTER XIII

DEAR SIR--

Don never had an opportunity to test his knowledge of the bonds
about which he had laboriously acquired so much information,
because within the next week all these offerings had been sold and
their places taken by new securities. These contained an entirely
different set of figures. It seemed to him that all his previous
work was wasted. He must begin over again; and, as far as he could
see, he must keep on beginning over again indefinitely. He felt
that Farnsworth had deprived him of an opportunity, and this had the
effect of considerably dampening his enthusiasm.

Then, too, during December and most of January Frances kept him very
busy. He had never seen her so gay or so beautiful. She was like a
fairy sprite ever dancing to dizzy music. He followed her in a sort of
daze from dinner to dance, until the strains of music whirled through
his head all day long.

The more he saw of her, the more he desired of her. In Christmas week,
when every evening was filled and he was with her from eight in the
evening until two and three and four the next morning, he would glance
at his watch every ten minutes during the following day. The hours
from nine to five were interminable. He wandered restlessly about the
office, picking up paper and circular, only to drop them after an
uneasy minute or two. The entire office staff faded into the
background. Even Mis