"Well, I don't want you to drag business home with you. I want you to leave business behind and come to me and to your home. I don't want you to think that you have to retail to me every bit of business complexity that turns up. But--dear! I want to have a part in your dreams. I want you to come first to me, always, when you conceive some great ambition. Will you?" "Always, dear lady! I promise--" "Wait!" She checked him, finger on lips. "That's not what I want you to promise. I want something far more important to both of us! I want you to promise me just this one thing: That when some real business trouble comes to worry you, you will bring it to me. First to me, ahead of your friends, ahead of your lawyers, ahead of your business men. Not for my poor advice, perhaps, but just to let me share it with you first." Armstrong, as he smiled at her, wondered why her face was so strained and anxious. "I promise, lady. Why, dear--you don't think I'd take my troubles to Mac in preference to you?" "Oh, I'm jealous of course, but that has nothing to do with it. There's a deeper reason that I'm not going to tell now." Her fingers tightened on his arms, tensely earnest. "It's a promise, now?" "Surely, sweetheart," he said gravely. "Why--lady! You're crying--" "Because I love you, that's all. Kiss me!" Armstrong, rendered more than a little uneasy by her manner, was relieved to find that she said no more on the subject. He would not have been so relieved had he known how she lay awake that night, staring into the darkness, her brain struggling with the problem of Macgowan. Intuition told her that the man was an enemy; she could not forget those words of his on her wedding-day. Against all this balanced his friendship and help for Armstrong, and weighed down the scales with fact. Yet she could not dismiss her fear of him; that it was baseless and apparently unfounded, only served to increase her hurt and anxiety. Still, she knew that she dare not so much as hint such a thing to her husband. And to Armstrong himself, who was very sensitive to Dorothy's mental reactions, this incident recurred more than once. He was quite aware that marriage will seldom endure old comradeships. It was natural that Dorothy should feel a twinge of jealousy; had she not frankly admitted the fact? Down there in the city, it was Macgowan who was Armstrong's alter ego, who handled all Armstrong's affairs, who was friend and practically business partner as well. So far as the city was concerned, that was all very well. "But I'll have to leave Mac in the city," thought Armstrong. "Dot is going to resent it if I bring him home too often. I'll bring Jimmy Wren down one of these days--he's pure boy and hasn't any of Mac's cynical loftiness. Dot has too many ideals to be enthralled by Mac's attitude, maybe." Which was all very nice, and all entirely wrong. Like most men, Armstrong was blind to the inner motivations of the woman he loved.