r a while and let you
work at that. I'm sure you'd make a big success of it."

"Art doesn't appeal to me so much as it did once," replied Eugene. "I've
lived too well and I know a lot more about living than I once did. Where
could I make twelve thousand a year painting? If I had a hundred
thousand or a couple of hundred thousand laid aside, it would be a
different thing, but I haven't. All we have is that Pennsylvania
Railroad stock and those lots in Montclair eating their merry little
heads off in taxes, and that Steel common stock. If we go back to New
York we ought to build on that Montclair property, and rent it if we
don't want to live in it. If I quit now we wouldn't have more than two
thousand dollars a year outside of what I could earn, and what sort of a
life can you live on that?"

Angela saw, disappearing under those circumstances, the rather pleasant
world of entertainment in which they were disporting themselves. Art
distinction might be delightful, but would it furnish such a table as
they were sitting at this morning? Would they have as nice a home and as
many friends? Art was glorious, but would they have as many rides and
auto trips as they had now? Would she be able to dress as nicely? It
took money to produce a variety of clothing--house, street, evening,
morning and other wear. Hats at thirty-five and forty dollars were not
in the range of artists' wives, as a rule. Did she want to go back to a
simpler life for his art's sake? Wouldn't it be better to have him go
with Mr. Colfax and make $25,000 a year for a while and then have him
retire?

"You'd better talk to Mr. Kalvin," she counseled. "You'll have to do
that, anyhow. See what he says. After that you can decide what you must
do."

Eugene hesitated, but after thinking it all over he decided that he
would.

One morning not long after, when he met Mr. Kalvin in the main hall on
the editorial floor, he said, "I'd like to talk to you for a few moments
some time today alone, Mr. Kalvin, if you can spare me the time."

"Certainly. I'm not busy now," returned the president. "Come right down.
What is it you want to see me about?"

"Well, I'll tell you," said Eugene, when they had reached the former's
office and he had closed the door. "I've had an offer that I feel that I
ought to talk to you about. It's a pretty fascinating proposition and
it's troubling me. I owe it to you as well as to myself to speak about
it."

"Yes; what is it?" said Kalv