and wheeled suddenly upon his companion.

"Ormsby, that's a thing I've been afraid of, all along; and it's the one
thing you must never do."

"Why not?" demanded the straightforward Ormsby.

Kent knew he was skating on the thinnest of ice, but his love for Elinor
made him fearless of consequences.

"If you don't know without being told, it proves that your money has
spoiled you to that extent. It is because you have no right to entrap Miss
Brentwood into an obligation that would make her your debtor for the very
food she eats and the clothes she wears. You will say she need never know:
be very sure she would find out, one way or another; and she would never
forgive you."

"Um," said Ormsby, turning visibly grim. "You are frank enough--to draw it
mildly. Another man in my place might suggest that it isn't Mr. David
Kent's affair."

Kent turned about and caught step again.

"I've said my say--all of it," he rejoined stolidly. "We've been decently
modern up to now, and we won't go back to the elemental things so late in
the day. All the same, you'll not take it amiss if I say that I know Miss
Brentwood rather better than you do."

Ormsby did not say whether he would or would not, and the talk went aside
to less summary ways and means preservative of the Brentwood fortunes. But
at the archway of the Camelot Club, where Kent paused, Ormsby went back to
the debatable ground in an outspoken word.

"I know pretty well now what there is between us, Kent, and we mustn't
quarrel if we can help it," he said. "If you complain that I didn't give
you a fair show, I'll retort that I didn't dare to. Are you satisfied?"

"No," said David Kent; and with that they separated.

VIII

THE HAYMAKERS

By the terms of its dating clause the new trust and corporation law became
effective at once, "the public welfare requiring it"; and though there was
an immediate sympathetic decline in the securities involved, there was no
panic, financial or industrial, to mark the change from the old to the
new.

Contrary to the expectations of the alarmists and the lawyers, and
somewhat to the disappointment of the latter, the vested interests showed
no disposition to test the constitutionality of the act in the courts. So
far, indeed, from making difficulties, the various alien corporations
affected by the new law wheeled promptly into line in compliance with its
provisions, vying with one another in proving, or seeming to prove, the