almost the price he couldn't afford to pay for Storm. He had a grim
thought that midwinter flowers made dining as expensive as dying.
Carmen, whom nothing escaped, complimented him on his taste, quite aware
that he couldn't afford it, and, apropos, told him of a lady in Chicago
who, hearing that the fashion had changed, wrote on her dinner cards, "No
flowers." It was only a matter of course for these people to build a new
country-house in any spot that fashion for the moment indicated, to equip
their yachts for a Mediterranean voyage or for loitering down the
Southern coast, to give a ball that was the talk of the town, to make up
a special train of luxurious private cars for Mexico or California. Even
at the clubs the talk was about these things and the opportunities for
getting them.

There was a rumor about town that Henderson was a good deal extended.
It alarmed a hundred people, not on Henderson's account, but their own.
When one of them consulted Uncle Jerry, that veteran smiled.

"Oh, I guess Henderson's all right. But I wouldn't wonder if it meant a
squeeze. Of course if he's extended, it's an excuse for settling up, and
the shorts will squeal. I've seen Henderson extended a good many times,"
and the old man laughed. "Don't you worry about him."

This opinion, when reported, did not seem to quiet Jack's fears, who saw
his own little venture at the mercy of a sweeping Street game. It
occurred to him that he possibly might get a little light on the matter
by dropping in that afternoon and taking a quiet cup of tea with Mrs.
Henderson.

He found her in the library. Outdoors winter was slouching into spring
with a cold drizzle, with a coating of ice on the pavements-animating