It was April now, and as yet they had not bought a car. Mather had discovered that he was saving practically nothing and that in another half-year he would have a family on his hands. It worried him. A wrinkle--small, tentative, undisturbing--appeared for the first time as a shadow around his honest, friendly eyes. He worked far into the spring twilight now, and frequently brought home with him the overflow from his office day. The new car would have to be postponed for a while. April afternoon, and all the city shopping on Washington Street. Jaqueline walked slowly past the shops, brooding without fear or depression on the shape into which her life was now being arbitrarily forced. Dry summer dust was in the wind; the sun bounded cheerily from the plate-glass windows and made radiant gasoline rainbows where automobile drippings had formed pools on the street. Jaqueline stopped. Not six feet from her a bright new sport roadster was parked at the curb. Beside it stood two men in conversation, and at the moment when she identified one of them as young Bronson she heard him say to the other in a casual tone: "What do you think of it? Just got it this morning." Jaqueline turned abruptly and walked with quick tapping steps to her husband's office. With her usual curt nod to the stenographer she strode by her to the inner room. Mather looked up from his desk in surprise at her brusque entry. "Jim," she began breathlessly, "did Bronson ever pay you that three hundred?" "Why--no," he answered hesitantly, "not yet. He was in here last week and he explained that he was a little bit hard up." Her eyes gleamed with angry triumph. "Oh, he did?" she snapped. "Well, he's just bought a new sport roadster that must have cost anyhow twenty-five hundred dollars." He shook his head, unbelieving. "I saw it," she insisted. "I heard him say he'd just bought it." "He _told_ me he was hard up," repeated Mather helplessly. Jaqueline audibly gave up by heaving a profound noise, a sort of groanish sigh. "He was _u_sing you! He knew you were easy and he was _u_sing you. Can't you see? He wanted _you_ to buy him the car and you _did_!" She laughed bitterly. "He's probably roaring his sides out to think how easily he worked you." "Oh, no," protested Mather with a shocked expression, "you must have mistaken somebody for him----"