"But I don't want to wait until then... They tell me this man Kendrick is getting awfully sore at losing so much of Hilmer's business. He'd like nothing better than to hop on to some irregularity in my methods and get me fired from the Exchange... It takes a thief to catch one, you know." "Oh, why worry?" Helen almost snapped at him. "If Brauer gets us into a mess we can always throw him out." Starratt's eyes widened. Where did Helen get this ruthless philosophy? Had it always lain dormant in her, or was this business life already putting a ragged edge upon her finer perceptions? But he made no answer. He had never admitted to Helen that Brauer had insisted upon drawing up a hard-and-fast partnership agreement, and taking his note for half of the money advanced in the bargain. It was one of the business secrets which he decided he would not share with anybody--he had a childish wish to preserve some mystery in connection with his venture against the soft and dubious encroachments of his wife. "Anyway," Helen went on, "as soon as we get running smoothly we can split. No doubt _he'll_ want to pull out when he sees that he can get along without us... Just now he isn't taking any chances. He's holding down his own job and letting us do all the work and the worrying... Oh, he's German, all right, from the ground up." Fred had often shared this same hope, although he had never voiced it. When the time came, no doubt Brauer would eliminate himself--for a consideration--and set up his own office. But it amazed him to find how swiftly and completely Helen had figured all these things out. Had her mind always worked so coldly and logically under her rather indifferent surface? He still wondered, too, at her efficiency. Was this a product of her social service with the Red Cross during war times?... Being a man, he couldn't concede that a proper domestic training was a pretty good schooling in any direction. He didn't see any relationship between a perfectly baked apple pie and a neatly kept cash book. He had expected his wife to fall down on the mechanical aspects of typewriting, but he forgot that she had been running a sewing machine since she was fifteen years old. And even in his wife's early childhood people were still using lamps for soft effects and intensive reading. Any woman who knew the art of keeping a kerosene lamp in shape must of necessity find the oiling and cleaning of a typewriting machine mere child's play. He didn't realize the affinities of training. It would never have occurred to him to fancy that because he kept his office desk in perfect order he was qualified to do the same thing with a kitchen stove, or that the method he had acquired as office boy, copying letters in the letterpress, would have stood him in good stead if he suddenly had been called upon to make up his own bed. What he did realize was that the leveling process which goes hand in hand with the mingling of sexes in a workday world was setting in.