because he hadn't any to speak of. But the golden flood of money he
commanded could not wash out certain gutter marks in his speech, person,
and manner. That such an inmate should eat above the salt in Colonel
Desha's home was a painful acknowledgment of the weight of necessity.

What the necessity was, Sue sensed but vaguely. It was there,
nevertheless, almost amounting to an obsession. For when the Desha and
Waterbury type commingle there is but the one interpretation. Need
of money or clemency in the one case; need of social introduction or
elevation through kinship in the other.

The latter was Waterbury's case. But he also loved Sue--in his own way.
He had met her first at the Carter Handicap, and, as he confided
to himself: "She was a spanking filly, of good stock, and with good
straight legs."

His sincere desire to "butt into the Desha family" he kept for the
moment to himself. But as a preliminary maneuver he had intimated that
a visit to the Desha home would not come in amiss. And the old colonel,
for reasons he knew and Waterbury knew, thought it would be wisest to
accede.

Perhaps now the colonel was considering those reasons. His room was next
that of his daughter, and in her listening wakefulness she had heard him
turn restlessly in bed. Insomnia loves company as does misery. Presently
the colonel arose, and the strong smell of Virginia tobacco and the
monotonous pad, pad of list slippers made themselves apparent.

Sue threw on a dressing-gown and entered her father's room. He was in a
light green bathrobe, his white hair tousled like sea-foam as he passed