people for their business."

"Then why don't you do that?"

"I don't know how. And if I did know, I couldn't, anyhow. The people
that come to me come because they have confidence in my ability. If
they don't have confidence, I couldn't work them because--I just
couldn't, that's all."

"You're too thin-skinned. If I were a man I'd _make_ them come to me,
and then I'd teach them to have confidence--the way Dick Holden does."

"Dick Holden's way, somebody else's, never mine," he thought bitterly,
"is always the best."

But he did not let her see him wince. Instead, he said gently, "In the
long run it's not the sound way. If I do good work, some day people
will realize it and come to me. And I _do_ good work," he cried, not
to boast, but because their courage needed a tonic, "and some day when
I get my chance I'll do far finer."

She smiled wearily. "Some day! It's always some day. Why don't you
_make_ your chance--as Dick does?"

That talk rankled in David's heart long after Shirley had forgotten it.
She could say such things and forget them in an hour. But her
comparisons never angered him, only hurt. He tried to be just, and
blamed himself for their predicament. If he had been wise and firm at
the beginning, when the temptations to indulgences came, they could
have escaped these troublous waters. Firmness now seemed only cruel.

"You see," he would explain to himself, trying to believe, "she's
really only a child still. It is very hard on her. If I said no to
things now, she wouldn't understand. I must just make it as easy as
possible for her--somehow." But he sighed, "If only we could give up
this apartment and live cheaply and--and honestly until we're on our
feet. If only she'd look at it that way!"

He had suggested that to Shirley once--but only once. "Oh, no!" she
had cried. "That would be a confession to everybody. It would be
humiliating, more than I could bear. We've got to keep this apartment
and not let people know we're hard up."

They thought people did not know.

So it went for nearly two years. You must not think there were no
happy times, hours or days or even weeks when they took joy in their
love and Davy Junior; though more and more these times lost their
wonderfulness and the power to charm away the grisly goblin Care. But
the ugly or weary or despondent hours bulked largest in David's mind
because he took them so keenly to heart. Yet, though his debts slowly
gr