To Marge’s delight, Phil began to spend money freely at the club: Marge had seen other young men do likewise, and there was but one end to be expected if their parents are not rich. Phil drank no wine, smoked no cigars, yet when he thought it proper to give a little dinner the best that the club’s caterer could supply was on the table. He did not seem to have any other expensive habits, except that he dressed so carefully that his tailor’s bill must be large; still, a man who gives dinners at clubs must have plenty of money. From being a source of gratification, Phil’s free use of money began gradually to cause Marge dismay. Where did it all come from? He could scarcely be earning it in his capacity of junior clerk in an iron-house. Could it be that Tramlay had him in training for the position of son-in-law, and was paying the cost of introducing him favorably to the notice of some sets of New York society to whom he could not present him at his own house? Such a course would be quite judicious in a father desiring wider acquaintance for his daughter when she should become a bride; but, if it really were being pursued, would he, Marge, ever hear the end of the rallying to which his own part in the programme would subject him? There was more torment in this view of the case than Marge had ever experienced in his life before, and it robbed him at times of his habitual expression to an extent that was noticeable and made him the subject of some club chat. No matter how exclusive a club may be, no matter how careful in the selection of its members that none but gentlemen may be upon its list, it cannot prevent a small, gradual, but distinct and persistent aggregation of gossips,--fellows whose energies, such as they are, tend solely to investigation of the affairs of their acquaintances. There was not an hour of the day or night when several of these fellows could not be found at Marge’s club, lounging as listlessly and inconspicuously as so many incurables at a hospital, but Marge knew by experience that these were the only fellows worth going to if he wanted to know all that was being said about a member, particularly if it was uncomplimentary. And now, confound them, possibly they were talking about him, and intimating that he was being used to improve the standing of his own rival! Still, as he informed himself, all his annoyance came from a mere supposition, which might be entirely without foundation. Perhaps the young man had means of his own; he had not looked like it when he first appeared in New York, but appearances sometimes were deceitful. Marge had heard Tramlay allude to Phil’s father as an honest old farmer to whom fortune had not been any too generous; but perhaps he had been estimating the old man’s possessions only by New York standards: was it not the farming-class that originally took up the greater part of the government’s great issues of bonds?