ng, gave no sign. He went on: "It will wear
away as we know each other better. I am a simple, plain man--kind and
generous in my instincts. Of course I am dignified, and I do not like
familiarity. But I do not mean to inspire fear and awe."

A still longer pause. "Well, everything is settled," said the general.
"We understand each other clearly?--not an engagement, nothing binding
on either side--simply a--a--an option without forfeit." And he
laughed--his laugh was a ghoulish sound, not loud but explosive and an
instant check upon demonstration of mirth from anyone else.

"I understand," said Mildred with a glance toward the door through
which Presbury and his wife had disappeared.

"Now, we'll join the others, and I'll show you the house"--again the
laugh--"what may be your future home--one of them."

The four were soon started upon what was for three of them a weariful
journey despite the elevator that spared them the ascents of the
stairways. The house was an exaggerated reproduction of all the
establishments of the rich who confuse expenditure with luxury and
comfort. Bill Siddall had bought "the best of everything"; that is,
the things into which the purveyors of costly furnishings have put the
most excuses for charging. Of taste, of comfort, of discrimination,
there were few traces and these obviously accidental. "I picked out the
men acknowledged to be the best in their different lines," said the
general, "and I gave them carte blanche."

"I see that at a glance," said Presbury. "You've done the grand thing
on the grandest possible scale."

"I've looked into the finest of the famous places on the other side,"
said the general. "All I can say is, I've had no regrets."

"I should say not," cried Mrs. Presbury.

With an affectation of modest hesitation--to show that he was a
gentleman with a gentleman's fine appreciation of the due of maiden
modesty--Siddall paused at the outer door of his own apartments. But
at one sentence of urging from Mrs. Presbury he opened the door and
ushered them in. And soon he was showing them everything--his Carrara
marble bathroom and bathing-pool, his bed that had been used by several
French kings, his dressing-room with its appliances of gold and
platinum and precious stones, his clothing. They had to inspect a room
full of suits, huge chiffoniers crowded with shirts and ties and
underclothes. He exhibited silk dressing-robes and pajamas, pointed out
the marks of