"I've had to be already. I gave him a commission to collect some rents and he came back fifty dollars short, calmly explaining that one of our lodgers looked poor and he hated to ask for the rent." "O Curt--the boy is ve'y sweet and wa'm-hearted. Were you cross with him?" "Not very. I imparted a few plain truths--very pleasantly, Celia. He knew better; there's a sort of an impish streak in him--also an inclination for the pleasant by-ways of life. . . . He had better let drink alone, too, if he expects to remain in my office. I told him that." "Does he--the foolish baby!" "Oh, probably not very much. I don't know; he's likable, but--he hasn't inspired me with any overwhelming respect and confidence. His record is not exactly savoury. But he's your protege, and I'll stand him as long as you can." "Thank you, Curt. We must be gentle to him. I shall ask him to dinner and we can give a May dance perhaps--something informal and pretty--What is the matter, Curt?" "Nothing, dear. . . . Only I wouldn't plan anything just yet--I mean for the present--not for a few days, anyway----" He shrugged, removed his glasses, polished them on his handkerchief, and sat holding them, his short-sighted eyes lost in reverie. His wife endured it to the limit of patience: "Curt," she began in a lower voice, "you and I gen'ally avoid certain matters, dear--but--ev'ything is sure to come right in the end--isn't it? The No'th is going to be sensible." "In the--end," he admitted quietly. And between them the ocean sprang into view again. "I wonder--" She stopped, and an inexplicable uneasiness stirred in her breast. She looked around at her son, her left hand fell protectingly upon his shoulder, her right, groping, touched her husband's sleeve. "I am--well cared for--in the world," she sighed happily to herself. "It shall not come nigh me." Stephen was saying to Ailsa: "There's a piece of up-town property that came into the office to-day which seems to me significant of the future. It would be a good investment for you, Cousin Ailsa. Some day Fifth Avenue will be built up solidly with brown-stone mansions as far as the Central Park. It is all going to be wonderfully attractive when they finish it." Ailsa mused for a moment. Then: "I walked down this street to Fort Greene this afternoon," she began, "and the little rocky park was so sweet and fragrant with dogwood and Forsythia and new buds everywhere. And I looked out over the rivers and the bay and over the two cities and, Steve, somehow--I don't know why--I found my eyes filling with tears. I don't know why, Steve----" "Feminine sentiment," observed her cousin, smoking.