comes out this winter."

"Really?"

"And--you were great friends. I think she misses you a little."

"I wish I thought so!"

Gentle Mrs. Haverford glanced up at him quickly.

"You know she doesn't approve of me."

"Why, Graham!"

"Well, ask her," he said. And there was a real bitterness under the
lightness of his tone. "I'll come, of course, Mrs. Haverford. Thank you
for asking me. I haven't a lot of time. I'm a sort of clerk down at the
mill, you know."

Natalie overheard, and her eyes met Clayton's, with a glance of
malicious triumph. She had been deeply resentful that he had not made
Graham a partner at once. He remembered a conversation they had had a
few months before.

"Why should he have to start at the bottom?" she had protested. "You
have never been quite fair to him, Clay." His boyish diminutive had
stuck to him. "You expect him to know as much about the mill now as you
do, after all these years."

"Not at all. I want him to learn. That's precisely the reason why I'm
not taking him in at once."

"How much salary is he to have?"

"Three thousand a year."

"Three thousand! Why, it will take all of that to buy him a car."

"There are three cars here now; I should think he could manage."

"Every boy wants his own car."

"I pay my other managers three thousand," he had said, still patient.
"He will live here. His car can be kept here, without expense.
Personally, I think it too much money for the service he will be able to
give for the first year or two."

And, although she had let it go at that, he had felt in her a keen
resentment. Graham had got a car of his own, was using it hard, if
the bills the chauffeur presented were an indication, and Natalie had
overdrawn her account two thousand five hundred dollars.

The evening wore on. Two tables of bridge were going, with Denis Nolan
sitting in at one. Money in large amounts was being written in on the
bridge scores. The air of the room was heavy with smoke, and all the
men and some of the women were drinking rather too much. There were
splotches of color under the tan in Graham's cheeks, and even Natalie's
laughter had taken on a higher note.

Chris's words rankled in Clayton Spencer's mind. A step from the
Saturday night carouse. How much better was this sort of thing? A dull
party, driven to cards and drink to get through the evening. And what
sort of home life were he and Natalie giving the boy? Either this, or
the dreary evenings when