"The president of a trust company!" Honora scarcely recognized her own
voice--so distant it sounded. The room rocked, and she clutched the arm
of a chair and sat down. He came and stood over her.

"I thought that would surprise you some," he said, obviously pleased by
these symptoms. "The fact is, I hadn't meant to break it to you until
morning. But I think I'll go in on the seven thirty-five." (He glanced
significantly up at the ceiling, as though Mrs. Holt had something to do
with this decision.) "President of the Orange Trust Company at forty
isn't so bad, eh?"

"The Orange Trust Company? Did you say the Orange Trust Company?"

"Yes." He produced a cigarette. "Old James Wing and Brent practically
control it. You see, if I do say it myself, I handled some things pretty
well for Brent this summer, and he's seemed to appreciate it. He and Wing
were buying in traction stocks out West. But you could have knocked me
down with a paper-knife when he came to me--"

"When did he come to you?" she asked breathlessly.

"Yesterday. We went down town together, you remember, and he asked me to
step into his office. Well, we talked it over, and I left on the one
o'clock for Newport to see Mr. Wing. Wonderful old man! I sat up with him
till midnight--it wasn't any picnic" . . .

More than once during the night Honora awoke with a sense of oppression,
and each time went painfully through the whole episode from the evening
--some weeks past when Trixton Brent had first mentioned the subject of