attered now to him not at all; he was looking into the
eyes of ruin utter and absolute. . . . But this, perhaps, is
premature, since before this day was to arrive much water was to flow
under many bridges, and it is with the flowing of some of that water
that this story has to deal.

About five o'clock, Charles Wilkinson called, as he often did, through
inclinations in which the gastronomic and the amatory were about evenly
divided. Long since, after a series of titanic but perfectly hopeless
struggles, he had abandoned all direct attempts to borrow money from
his opulent step-uncle; subsequent efforts to achieve indirectly the
same result by a myriad of methods admirably subtle and of marked
ingenuity had resulted only in equal failure. To be sure, there had
never been any really valid reason why his endeavors should have been
successful unless as compensation for years of patient labor. He
conceived his esteemed relation as a sort of safe-deposit box, to a
share of whose contents he was entitled if he could contrive to open
it. Farther back in the quest, he had approached Mr. Hurd with the
dash and confidence of a successful burglar, but of late the pursuit
had lapsed to a mere occasional half-hearted fumble at the combination.

However, he often came to tea. Tea was something--tangibly of no great
importance, but from Wilkinson's viewpoint a sop to his self-respect in
the reflection that he was getting it from old man Hurd. Besides, it
kept the proximity established. Charles was as simple an optimist as a
frankly predatory young man could be; some day the vault door might
quite unexpectedly swing open, and it would be highly desirable to be
close at hand and to have an intimate knowledge of the exits. Mr. Hurd
was his only rich relation, and the step-nephew clung to him with
tentacles of despair.

Tea at John M. Hurd's was something,--comparatively a more vital factor
to Wilkinson, who lived in a cheap boarding house, than to its other
partakers,--and Isabel Hurd was something more.

He felt a sincere admiration for Isabel, and his admiration had the
substantial foundation of real respect. It happened that his
step-cousin was what is kindly called a nice girl, but Wilkinson's
regard passed hurriedly across any pleasing personal qualities she
might have possessed. To him she was the daughter of a magnate who
lived in a large house on Beacon Street and whose traction company gave
its stockholders (what