"To-morrow. And do you know who I'm going after first thing?...
Hilmer. He told me last night to come around and talk over insuring
that car of his... I don't know that I'll land that. But I might line
him up for something else. He must have a lot of insurance to place
one way or another."

She smiled dubiously. "Well, I wouldn't count too much upon Hilmer,"
she said, with a superior air.

"I'm not counting on anything or anybody," he returned, easily.
"Hilmer isn't the only fish in the sea."




CHAPTER IV


It was noon before Helen Starratt finished her housework next
morning--an unusually late hour for her, but she had been preoccupied,
and her movements slow in consequence. A four-room apartment, with
hardwood floors and a vacuum cleaner, was hardly a serious task for a
full-grown woman, childless, and with a vigor that reacted perfectly
to an ice-cold shower at 7 A.M. She used to look back occasionally at
the contrast her mother's life had presented. Even with a servant, a
three-storied, bay-windowed house had not given Mrs. Somers much
leisure for women's clubs. The Ladies Aid Society and a Christmas
festival in the church parlors were about as far along the road of
alleged social service as the woman of the last generation had