ner, like an Impressionist's
brush-work. She heard her husband come in and close the door softly.
While he was taking off his hat in the narrow tunnel of a hall, she
called to him:

"I hope you've had something to eat down-town. You'll have to dress
right away." Percy came in and sat down. She looked up from the
evening paper she was reading. "You've no time to sit down. We must
start in fifteen minutes."

He shaded his eyes from the glaring overhead light.

"I'm afraid I can't go anywhere to-night. I'm all in."

Mrs. Bixby rattled her paper, and turned from the theatrical page to
the fashions.

"You'll feel better after you dress. We won't stay late."

Her even persistence usually conquered her husband. She never forgot
anything she had once decided to do. Her manner of following it up
grew more chilly, but never weaker. To-night there was no spring in
Percy. He closed his eyes and replied without moving:

"I can't go. You had better telephone the Burks we aren't coming. I
have to tell you something disagreeable."

Stella rose.

"I certainly am not going to disappoint the Burks and stay at home
to talk about anything disagreeable."

"You're not very sympathetic, Stella."

She turned away.

"If I were, you'd soon settle down into a pretty dull proposition.
We'd have no social life now if I didn't keep at you."

Percy roused himself a little.

"Social life? Well, we'll have to trim that pretty close for a
while. I'm in debt to the company. We've been living beyond our
means ever since we were married."

"We can't live on less than we do," Stella said quietly. "No use in
taking that up again."

Percy sat up, clutching the arms of his chair.

"We'll have to take it up. I'm seven hundred dollars short, and the
books are to be audited to-morrow. I told young Remsen and he's
going to take my note and hold the money out of my pay-checks. He
could send me to jail, of course."

Stella turned and looked down at him with a gleam of interest.

"Oh, you've been playing solitaire with the books, have you? And
he's found you out! I hope I'll never see that man again. Sugar
face!" She said this with intense acrimony. Her forehead flushed
delicately, and her eyes were full of hate. Young Remsen was not her
idea of a "business man."

Stella went into the other room. When she came back she wore her
evening coat and carried long gloves and a black scarf. This she
began to arrange over her hair before the mirror