eet and call up, 'Heigh there' at the windows?"
She leaned forward quickly and sternly: "The friends I want are the
people he knew--the ones you told me of. That's my plan. Put me in
touch with some of them, and let me bring them in touch with Joe. And
I'll show you a different partner." He looked at her.

"Well, that's too simple, too," he said.

"Why is it?" she demanded.

"Because in those first years of his marriage I went to them so often,
in just the way you're thinking of. I got some of the men he used to
know to come to his office and take him to lunch. And it did so little
good they quit. They all got sick of it--and they're through."

Ethel leaned forward intensely:

"But it will be different now! Before, they had Amy here working
against them! I'm here now, and I'll be on their side!" He frowned, and
she cried impatiently, "You don't believe me, do you! You don't believe
I can do anything--or even that I want to!"

He looked at her for a moment.

"Yes," he said, "I almost do."

"Then please give me a chance," she said, very low. And by her eager
questions she began to draw out of Nourse the information she wanted.
It did not come easy, for the past seemed buried deep in his memory. As
one by one he spoke of Joe's friends he would add, "But he's dead," or,
"He's gone West." He had kept track of them, after a fashion, but he had
seen them little of late. What a lonely life he had led, she thought.
She wondered if he had grown too old and hopeless to be of any help.
She fought down her discouragement.

"There was Crothers," he was saying. "He's an architect, and he's doing
good work. He never had Joe's boldness, but he always had a fine sense
of things, and at least he has stuck to his ideals. He could do more to
bring Joe back than any other man I know."

"Then we must get him!"

"That will be hard."

"Why will it?"

"Because some years ago I tried to get Crothers into our firm. The two
of us together might have kept Joe from the mere money jobs and made it
a firm to be proud of. Crothers was ready to come in, and I had nearly
succeeded in bringing Joe to agree to it."

"Then what was the matter?"

"Your sister. Joe had told her he was thinking of some move in his
business which would keep him poor awhile. And she flew into quite a
rage. That was another time she sent for me." Nourse leaned grimly back
in his chair. "She told me that if I ruined her husband's 'career,' as
she called it, she'