while he kept his beautiful eyes floating on Christine's. "You try that,
now; it's very simple."

"Where is Mrs. Mandel?" Dryfoos demanded, trying to assert himself.

Neither of the girls seemed to have heard him at first in the chatter
they broke into over what Beaton proposed. Then Mela said, absently, "Oh,
she had to go out to see one of her friends that's sick," and she struck
the piano keys. "Come; try it, Chris!"

Dryfoos turned about unheeded and went back to the library. He would have
liked to put Beaton out of his house, and in his heart he burned against
him as a contumacious hand; he would have liked to discharge him from the
art department of 'Every Other Week' at once. But he was aware of not
having treated Beaton with much ceremony, and if the young man had
returned his behavior in kind, with an electrical response to his own
feeling, had he any right to complain? After all, there was no harm in
his teaching Christine the banjo.

His wife still sat looking into the fire. "I can't see," she said, "as
we've got a bit more comfort of our lives, Jacob, because we've got such
piles and piles of money. I wisht to gracious we was back on the farm
this minute. I wisht you had held out ag'inst the childern about sellin'
it; 'twould 'a' bin the best thing fur 'em, I say. I believe in my soul
they'll git spoiled here in New York. I kin see a change in 'em
a'ready--in the girls."

Dryfoos stretched himself on the lounge again. "I can't see as Coonrod is
much comfort, either. Why ain't he here with his sisters? What does all
that work of his on the East Side amount to? It seems as if he done it to