between
them. Howard had known that they were comfortably off, of course. They
had a beautiful car and wore good clothes, and were always free with
their entertaining, but they lived in a modest house, and never made
any pretences. It had not occurred to him that they were any better
off than he might be some day if he worked hard. They never talked
about their circumstances. Of course, now he came to think about it,
there were fine mahogany pieces of furniture in the little house and
wonderful rugs and things, but they all fitted in so harmoniously with
their surroundings that it never occurred to him that they might have
cost a mint of money. They never cried out their price to those who
saw them, they were simply the fitting thing in the fitting place,
doing their service as all right-minded things both animate and
inanimate in this world should do. It was the first serpent in the
Eden of this wonderful friendship at Cloudy Villa and it stung the
proud-spirited young man to the soul.

Alone in his room that night he finally gave up all pretence at study
and faced the truth. He had been drifting in a delightful dream during
the last two years, with only a vague and alluring idea of the future
before him, a future in which there was no question but that Allison
Cloud AND his sister Leslie should figure intimately. Now he was
suddenly and roughly awakened to ask himself whether he had any right
to count on all this. If these young people belonged to the favored
few of the world who were rolling in wealth, wasn't it altogether
likely that when they finished college they would pass out of this
comradely atmosphere into a world of their own, with a new set of laws
whereby to judge and choose their friends and life companions? He
could not quite imagine Allison and Leslie as anything but the frank,
friendly, enthusiastic comrades they had been since he had known
them--and yet--he knew the world, knew what the love of money could do
to a human soul, for he had seen it many times before in people he had
come to love and trust who had grown selfish and forgetful as soon as
money and power were put into their hands. He had to confess that it
was possible. Also, his own pride forbade him to wish to force himself
into a crowd where he could not hold his own and pay his part. They
would simply not be in his class, at least not for many years to come,
and his heart sank with desolation. It was then, and not till then,
that the he