him
to tell her of Nourse and Dwight, the old friends she herself had put on
his trail, and of new friends he had met in his club--"the club I
elected you to," she exulted. But the next instant she would add, "Oh,
Ethel, you're so ignorant! If you only knew about his work!" And
knitting her brows she would listen hard while he talked of steel
construction. As with her encouragement he talked on rapidly, absorbed,
Ethel would clutch at this and that. She learned of books and magazines
on architecture here and abroad. Stealthily she noted them down, and
those she could not purchase she hunted up in libraries. Nourse was a
great help to her here. He came to see her now and then; and though he
still had his discouraging moods, at other times he was friendly and
kind. Enjoying this conspiracy with the charming young Mrs. Lanier, he
expressed his gallantry by bringing her books of appalling size. But
some had beautiful illustrations that set her to imagining. Eagerly she
groped her way deep into the history of the building of cathedrals and
palaces in times gone by. And the long majestic story of man's building
on the earth thrilled her to the very soul. Joe must make his place in
it all!

When on coming home at night he dumped a pile of work on the table, she
would unobtrusively slip some book beside it. She grew to know which
ones tempted him most. He had been surprised and amused at first at her
interest in architecture--and secretly a little disturbed, suspecting
what lay behind it. But as autumn drew on he read more and more of the
books she kept putting in his way. While he read she would sit with a
novel or sew. She would glance up with some remark, and they would talk
and then read on. Subtly she made the atmosphere. She often brought
Paris into their talks. She spoke longingly of the shops and plays, and
all she wanted to see over there. And she almost succeeded in making
him promise to take her over the following spring.

Joe was happy at such times, when she could make him leave business
alone. And although he had many relapses, when night after night he
would sit by the table planning more horrible "junk for the Bronx," with
an inner smile she saw how often her husband scowled at such labour now.
She heard of changes in the office.

"We 're still building junk," Nourse confided one day, "but it isn't
quite as bad as before. Joe wants the money just as hard, but he's
plainly jarred by some of the jobs. He even