she even considers it. I couldn't budge her when she was practically
free."

"How is Claire?" Randon abruptly demanded.

"She's all right," her husband returned; "a little offhand, but no more
than usual. I want her to go to the West Indies and take Ira but she
won't listen. Why anyone who doesn't have to stay through these rotten
winters I can't imagine." A flaming log brought out his handsomely
proportioned face, the clear grey eyes, the light carefully brushed
hair and stubborn chin. Peyton was a striking if slightly sullen
appearing youth--yet he must be on the mark of thirty--and it was
undeniable that he was well thought of generally. At his university,
Princeton, he had belonged to a most select club; his family, his
prospects, even his present--junior partner in a young but successful
firm of bond brokers--were beyond reproach. Yet Lee Randon was aware
that he had never completely liked Peyton.

His exterior was too hard, too obviously certain, to allow any
penetration of the inevitable human and personal irregularities
beneath. It might be possible that he was all of a piece of the
conventional stereotyped proprieties; but Lee couldn't imagine Claire
marrying or holding to a man so empty, or, rather, so dully solid.
Claire he admired without reservation--a girl who had become a wife, a
mother, with no loss of her vivid character. Her attitude toward Ira,
now four years old--wholly different from Fanny's manner with her
children--was lightly humorous; publicly she treated her obligations as
jokes; but actually, Lee knew, she was indefatigable.

This was a type of high spirits, of highly bred courage, to which he