e and his friends going to mean that I'm too late--to bring back what
was in him!"

CHAPTER XIX

But all this was as nothing compared to the intensity, the ups and
down, in her relations with Joe himself. He often looked tired and
harassed. "What's the matter with me?" he seemed to ask. And she felt
his two sides combatting each other. On the one hand were the
influences of Nourse and Dwight and the men at the club, to which he
went nearly every day. He took part in discussions there, long
rambling talks and arguments. And his old ideals were rising hungrily
within him. But meanwhile the business man in Joe kept savagely putting
the dreamer down, and for days he would plunge into his work and the
fever of the money game. Joe had been so successful of late; and she
knew that in his office that odious press agent was for ever at him.
From Nourse she learned that her husband was even still considering the
scheme for a row of buildings named after the presidents. And Ethel had
a sinking of heart.

"If he does that, I'm lost," she decided. But she would shake off such
fears, as she felt again the old Joe emerge, the Joe of dreams and
startling plans. And she grew excited as she thought:

"Oh, if he'll only let himself go! I don't want him just nice and tame
and refined! I don't want only friends like that! I want--I want--"

What she wanted was still exceedingly vague, and Ethel could not put it
in words. It had something to do with the teachings of the little
history "prof" at home. She wanted the artist in him to rise, the
creative soul of him! Cautiously she probed his thoughts--now tender
and maternal toward him in his tired moods, now alive and interested as
she got him talking. Bits came out. Joe was so plainly tortured by the
struggle going on inside. She felt at once pity and admiration, and was
deeper in love with him than she had ever been before. She felt the
excitement of a fight with hope of victory close ahead. She took care
in her dress and manner to give him little surprises at night, and by
her cheery comradeship and her warm beauty of body and soul, Ethel drew
him on and on. At such times she would often lose all memory of her
scheming and would give up to her love, which had become a passion now.

But always she came back to her plan. Not openly, for she had to be
careful; she worked at him in little ways. She stirred his youth and
his cast-off dreams by her own youth and zest for it all. She got