ever for their benefit rather than his own, and the others seeing an
aristocrat by birth and training, who was in trade because of shrewd
business instincts and a longing for wealth and power, but who
despised, and felt himself wholly superior to, the means by which it
was acquired.

"We ain't anything but the rounds of the ladder for Norman Lloyd to
climb by, and he only sees and feels us with the soles of his
patent-leathers," one of the turbulent spirits in his factory said.
Mrs. Norman Lloyd would not have believed her ears had she heard
him.

Mrs. Lloyd had not sat long before Cynthia's fire that evening
before she opened on the subject of the lost child. "Oh, Cynthia,
have you heard--" she began, but Risley cut her short.

"About that little girl who ran away?" he said. "Yes, we have; we
were just talking about her."

"Did you ever hear anything like it?" said Mrs. Lloyd. "They say
they can't find out where she's been. She won't tell. Don't you
believe somebody has threatened her if she does?"

Cynthia raised herself and began to speak, but a slight, almost
imperceptible gesture from the man beside her stopped her.

"What did you say, Cynthia?"

"There is no accounting for children's freaks," said Risley, shortly
and harshly. Mrs. Lloyd was not thin-skinned; such a current of