Harriet passed the door on her way in to a belated supper. The man in the
parlor had a momentary glimpse of her slender, sagging shoulders, her thin
face, her undisguised middle age.

"Yes," he said, when she was out of hearing. "It's hard, but I dare say
it's right enough, too. Your aunt ought to have her chance. Only--I wish
it didn't have to be."

Sidney, left alone, stood in the little parlor beside the roses. She
touched them tenderly, absently. Life, which the day before had called her
with the beckoning finger of dreams, now reached out grim insistent hands.
Life--in the raw.




CHAPTER III


K. Le Moyne had wakened early that first morning in his new quarters. When
he sat up and yawned, it was to see his worn cravat disappearing with
vigorous tugs under the bureau. He rescued it, gently but firmly.

"You and I, Reginald," he apostrophized the bureau, "will have to come to
an understanding. What I leave on the floor you may have, but what blows
down is not to be touched."

Because he was young and very strong, he wakened to a certain lightness of
spirit. The morning sun had always called him to a new day, and the sun
was shining. But he grew depressed as he prepared for the office. He told