to be the head of the Marklin household, Bess had taken on a quiet,
grave atmosphere of authority that was ten years older than her age.

The Marklins were fair rich. Father Marklin had been a physician whose
patients were women of fashion; and that makes a practice wherein your
doctor may know less medicine and make more money than in any other walk
of drugs. A woman likes big bills from a physician if the malady be her
own; she draws importance from the size of the bills. When one reflects
that there is nothing to some women except their aches and their
ailments, it all seems rational enough. These be dangerous digressions;
one might better return to the drug-dealing parent of Bess, who visited
the fair sufferers in a Brewster brougham and measured out his calls by
minutes, watch in hand. He heaped up a fortune for Bess and her mother,
and then at one and the same moment quit both his practice and the
world.

When Dorothy came in with Richard, they found Bess entertaining a
caller. The caller was a helpless person named Mr. Fopling.

"Mr. Storms, permit me to make you acquainted with Mr. Fopling,"
observed Bess, after Dorothy had presented Richard.

When Bess named Richard to Mr. Fopling, she did so with a
master-of-ceremony flourish that was protecting and mannish. Richard
grinned in friendship upon Mr. Fopling, who shook hands flabbily and
seemed uncertain of his mental direction. Richard said nothing through
fear of overwhelming Mr. Fopling. Mr. Fopling was equally silent through
fear of overwhelming himself. Released from Richard, Mr. Fopling found
refuge in the chair he had quitted, and maintained himself without sound
or motion, bolt upright, staring straight ahead. Mr. Fopling had a