etta settled into her seat.

"You mean the accident Mr. Brand had with his automobile? Didn't they
have a fortunate escape!"

"That man has the luck of the Irish army!" declared Mrs. Fenlow.

"Did you notice that he was the only one to escape without any injury,
though the cause of it was evidently his reckless driving? That's the
way things always happen with him. He gets his pleasure and other
people take the consequences."

Mrs. Fenlow's tone was so sharp and bitter that Henrietta looked at
her in surprise. There were signs of trouble in her face, which bore
also something of a war-like aspect. Dark hollows under her eyes and
little lines about her mouth seemed to tell of mental anguish. But her
lips were pressed together determinedly and she held her head high.

"But he can't go on like this much longer. He's bound to have a
smash-up some of these fine days."

"What do you mean, Mrs. Fenlow?" queried Henrietta, wide-eyed.

Mrs. Fenlow had been speaking straight ahead of her, into the air, as
if, absorbed in her own bitter thoughts, she had for the moment
forgotten her companion. At the girl's question she turned with a
quick movement suggestive of the swoop of a bird of prey.

"Pardon me, my dear, if I use disrespectful language about your
employer. The Good Lord knows I have reason enough for it. But you
needn't feel uneasy because I say it in your hearing, for I'm going to
his office this very day to say the same things, and worse, to his
face. When I think of the way he's used his influence over Mark--and I
believed him the pink of perfection and was as pleased as an old fool
over his friendship for my boy! My God!"

Her voice sank to a whisper of such fierce indignation that Henrietta
shrunk a little away, staring in astonishment at her set face and
quivering lips.

"Of course," she presently went on in a more natural tone, "Mark ought
to have known better, he ought to have had more sense and more
strength of character than to yield to that sort of temptation. But he
was only a lad, and Felix Brand was old enough to know the danger
there was in it for a young fellow like that. And Mark admired him so
much he thought whatever Brand did must be all right."

She broke off into sudden silence and Henrietta saw her wipe a tear
from the corner of her eye. The girl was so confused and embarrassed
by these signs of keen emotion and hidden trouble and so ignorant of
their cause that she could think of nothin