they're
the means to everything. Get your competency first, your balance-wheel,
your independence, your established base of supplies; then plan your
campaign. The world is big, infinitely big, to the human being who can
command. It's a little mud ball to the other who has to dance whenever
some one else whistles."

"And how about happiness, the thing we're all after?"

"It isn't happiness, but it's the means to it. There can be no happiness
without independence."

"Even marital happiness?"

"That most of all. I tell you the lack of a sufficient income is the rock
on which most married people go to pieces. It isn't the only one, but
it's the most frequent. I've seen and I know."

"You'd drive our old friend Cupid out of business, Darley. You don't give
him an inch of ground to stand on."

"On the contrary, I keep him in business indefinitely--"

"Moreover, the examples of the rich, scattered broadcast through the
daily papers, hardly bear you out."

"They are the exception that proves the rule. Nine hundred and
ninety-nine poor couples come to grief, and the world never hears of it.
In the thousandth case a rich man and woman make fools of themselves and
the world reads the scandal next morning. The principle is unaltered. The
exceptions, the irresponsibles whether rich or poor, are something to
which no rule applies."

"All right." Armstrong sat up, preventingly. "I don't want to argue with
you. You're a typical lawyer and always ride me down by pure force of
mass." He smiled. "Gentlemen of the law are invariably that way, Darley.
Figuratively, you fellows always travel horseback while the rest of us go
afoot, and if we don't hustle out of the way you ride us down without
remorse."

Roberts was listening again in silence, with his normal attitude of
passive observance.

"I'm feeling pretty spry, though, to-night," went on the other, "and able
to get out of the way, so I'm going to get in close as possible and watch
you. I've tried to do so before, but somehow I'm always side-tracked just
at the psychological moment." The quizzical voice became serious, the
flippant manner vanished. "Honestly, Darley, I can't understand you any
more than you can me. You said a bit ago you wondered where I would end.
I have the same wonder about you. Just what are you aiming at, old man,
anyway? In all the years I've known you _you've_ never come right out and
said in so many words."

"You mean what do I intend to do that