"Just getting acquainted with myself," she replied, with something of

her old airy manner. "Good-by."

His irritation passed as quickly as it came. He felt calm and very sure

of himself, and rather light-hearted. Joey, who was by now installed

as an office adjunct, and who commonly referred to the mill as "ours,"

heard him whistling blithely and cocked an ear in the direction of the

inner room.

"Guess we've made another million dollars," he observed to the

pencil-sharpener.

Clayton was not in the habit of paying afternoon calls on women. The

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number of such calls that he had paid without Natalie during his married

life could have been numbered on the fingers of his two hands. Most of

the men he knew paid such visits, dropping in somewhere for tea or a

highball on the way uptown. He had preferred his club, when he had a

little time, the society of other men.

He wondered if he should call Natalie and tell her. But he decided

against it. It was possible, for one thing, that Audrey still did not

wish her presence in town known. If she did, she would tell Natalie

herself. And it was possible, too, that she wanted to discuss Chris, and

the reason for his going.

He felt a real sense of relief, when at last he saw her, to find her

looking much the same as ever. He hardly knew what he had expected.

Audrey, having warned him as to the apartment, did not mention its

poverty again. It was a tiny little place, but it had an open fire in

the living-room, and plain, pale-yellow walls, and she had given it that

curious air of distinction with which she managed, in her casual way, to

invest everything about her.

"I hope you observe how neat I am," she said, as she gave him her hand.

"My rooms, of course."

"Frightfully so."

He towered in the low room. Audrey sat down and surveyed him as he stood

by the fire.

"It is nice to have a man about again."

"Do you mean to say you have been living here, without even visitors,

for two months?"

"You'll laugh. Clay, I'm studying!"

"Studying! What?"

"Stenography. Oh, it's not as bad as that. I don't have to earn my

living. I've just got to do something for my soul's sake. I went all

over the ground, and I saw I was just a cumberer of the earth, and then

I thought--"

She hesitated.




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