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recently?"

      Now Price was the fashionable jeweller, and few women were indifferent to his name. Mrs. Harmon, recollecting the cause of her recent visit there, saw fit to be coy.

      "Oh, yes," she said, turning her head away. "He keeps asking me to come."

      "He's always picking up pretty things," said Ellis approvingly. "Did he have anything special this time?"

      "Something of Orsini's," replied Mrs. Harmon, struggling to appear indifferent. For they had been lovely, those baroque pearls so gracefully set in dusky gold. Price had made her try the necklace on, and she had sighed before the glass. "I wish he wouldn't pester me so," she said irritably. "He knows I can't afford them."

      "He knows you have taste," Ellis said warmly. "He calls it a great pleasure to show things to you."

      "I know," she replied, mollified. "I think he means to flatter me. But, Stephen, it's getting late, and I must dress for the Fennos' ball this evening."

      "Then," responded Ellis, "I will stop at Price's on my way down-town."

      "Naughty! naughty!" she answered, but she radiated smiles.

      Ellis, after he had left Mrs. Harmon at her door, went, as he had promised, to the establishment of the pushing Mr. Price, and asked for the proprietor.

      "Got anything to show me?" Ellis demanded.

      From his safe the jeweller brought out a leather case, and looked at Ellis impressively before opening it.

      "Pretty small," commented Ellis.

      "Ah, but——" replied the other, and opened the case. "Look—Orsini's make!"

      "I don't know anything about that," Ellis said as he poked the jewels with his finger. "Look strange to me. The fashion, however?"

      "The very latest," Price assured him. "Trust me, Mr. Ellis."

      It was one secret of Ellis's success that he knew where to trust. He had ventured twice that day, with women at that, and the thought of it was to trouble him before he slept. But he could trust Price in matters of taste, and as to secrecy, the man was bound to him. Price had been in politics at the time when Ellis was getting "influence" in the city government; for the jeweller those days were past, but this store and certain blocks of stock were the result. Besides, he was adroit. Ellis gave the chains and pendants a final push with his finger.

      "Send it, then," he said. "The usual place. By the way, how much? Whew! some things come dear, don't they? But send it, just the same, and at once. She's going out to some affair."

      Thus it happened that Mrs. Harmon wore "the very latest" at her throat that night.

      CHAPTER V

       Table of Contents

      Various Points of View

      The Blanchards' equipage was a perfect expression of quiet respectability, for the carriage was sober in colour, was drawn by a strong and glossy horse, and was driven by a coachman wearing a modest livery and a discontented countenance. As it drove away from the golf club the carriage held the three members of the family, in front the younger daughter, Beth, and on the rear seat the others: Judith erect and cheerful, the Colonel cheerful also, but lounging in his corner with the air of one who took the world without care. Blanchard was fifty-eight, military as to voice and hair, for his tones were sonorous and his white whiskers fierce. Yet these outward signs by no means indicated his nature, and his manner, though bluff, appertained less to military life than to the game of poker. Not that the Colonel played cards; moreover, he drank merely in moderation, swore simply to maintain his character, betrayed only by the tint of the left side of his mustache that he liked a good cigar, and was extravagant in neither dress nor table. He kept his carriage, of course, liked the best wines at home and at the club, and in a small way was a collector of curios. Yet the Blanchards, but for the brilliance of Judith, were quiet people; he was proud to be a quiet man.

      Dullness is often the penalty of indolence; the Colonel was lazy and he had small wit. Perceiving that Judith came away from the tea stimulated and even excited, he rallied her about her new acquaintance. "An interesting man, hey?" he asked for the third time.

      "Yes," answered Judith absently. "Father, what is there against Mr. Ellis?"

      "Only that he is a pusher. He jars." Blanchard aimed to be tolerant.

      "Isn't there more?" asked little Beth.

      The Colonel, as always, turned his eyes on her with pleasure. She was dark and quiet and sweet, yet her brown eyes revealed a power of examining questions for their moral aspects. "Nothing much," he said indulgently. "You don't know business, Beth. He's beaten his opponents always, and the beaten always squeal, but I doubt if he's as black as he's painted."

      "I'm glad to hear you stand up for him, father," said Judith.

      "He'll be looking for a wife among us," went on the Colonel with vast shrewdness and considerable delicacy. "How would he suit you, Judith?"

      "Oh, father!" Beth protested. But Judith, with fire in her eyes, answered: "He's at least a man. You can't say that of every one."

      Her answer made him turn toward her with a soberer thought and a new interest. His manner changed from the natural to the pompous as he set forth his views. "Money is almost the best thing one can have."

      "Father, dear!" protested Beth again.

      "I mean," he explained, again softening his manner, "from a father's standpoint. If I could see you two girls married with plenty of money, I could die happy." But evidently the Colonel was in the best of health, so that his words lacked impressiveness. It was one of the misfortunes of their family life that Judith was able to perceive the incongruity between her father's Delphic utterances and his actual feelings, and that the Colonel knew she found him out.

      "I wasn't thinking of Mr. Ellis's money," she said at this point.

      "I was," retorted the Colonel. As he was struggling with a real thought, his tones became a little less sonorous and more genuine. "In sickness riches give everything. In health there are enough troubles without money cares. I mean it, Judith."

      She took his hand and caressed it. "Forgive me, father!"

      "My dear—my dear!" he responded cordially.

      So this, the type of their little jars, the sole disturbers of family peace, passed as usual, rapidly and completely, and Ellis was spoken of no more. Beth, with customary adroitness, came in to shift the subject, and when the three descended at their door none of them shared the coachman's air of gloom.

      He, however, detained the Colonel while the girls went up the steps. "Beg pardon, sir, but could you give me a little of my wages?"

      "James," returned his master with his most military air, "why will you choose such inconvenient times? Here is all I have with me." He gave some money. "Twenty dollars."

      "Yessir," replied the man, not overmuch relieved. "And the rest of it, sir? There's a hundred more owing."

      "Not to-day," returned the Colonel with vexation. But he was an optimist. Though at the bottom of the steps he muttered to himself something about "discharge," by the time he reached the top he was absorbed in cheerful contemplation of the vast resources which, should Judith ever chance to marry Ellis, would be at her disposal.

      Five minds were, that evening, dominated by the occurrences of the afternoon. One was the Colonel's, still entertaining a dream which should properly be repugnant to one of his station. This he recognised, but he reminded himself that as a parent his daughter's good should be his care. Another mind was Mather's, disturbed by the jealousy and dread which the manliest of lovers cannot master. And one was Mrs. Harmon's; she, like Ellis, had learned much that afternoon, and meant in future to apply her knowledge.

      As that evening

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