"We must have patience," says Wilmarth, in that extremely irritating, hopeless tone. "Mr. Grandon _is_ interested in his wife's behalf, though it is said he has a fortune of his own, and the new method must be made to pay him, if every one else suffers. I am not a rich man, and should be sorry to lose what I thought was so sure in this concern." Rising finds his position an extremely disagreeable one. The men are not only curt, but evince a distrust of him, are unwilling to follow his suggestions, and will keep on in their old ways. Lindmeyer finds himself curiously foiled everywhere. It seems as if some unknown agency was at work. What he puts in order to-day is not quite right to-morrow. All the nice adjustment he can theorize about will not work harmoniously, economically. So passes away a fortnight. "Mr. Grandon," he says, honestly, "I seldom make a decided blunder about these matters, but I can't get down to the very soul of this. There is a little miss somewhere. I said I could tell you in a month, but I am afraid I shall have to ask a further fortnight's grace. I never was so puzzled in my life. It is making an expensive experiment for you, but I _do_ think it best to go on. I don't say this to lengthen out the job. There is plenty of work for me to go at." Grandon sighs. He finds it very expensive. It is money on the right hand and the left, and with a costly house and large family the income that was double his bachelor wants melts away like dew. He is not parsimonious, but his instincts and habits have been prudent. He is making inroads upon his capital, and if he should never get it back? His father, it is true, has advised against entangling his private fortune, but it cannot be helped now. To retreat with honor is impossible and would be extremely mortifying. He will not do that, he resolves. But how if he has to retreat with failure? All these things trouble him greatly and distract his attention. He sits up far into the night poring over his own work that was such pleasure a few months ago, and he can hardly keep his mind on what so delighted him then. There is quite too much on every hand, and he must add to it family complications. His beautiful home is full of jarring elements. Even Cecil grows naughty with the superabundant vitality of childhood, and is inclined to tyrannize over Violet, who often submits for very lack of spirit, and desire of love. They are always together, these two. They take long drives in the carriage, and Mrs. Grandon complains that everything must be given over to that silly, red-haired thing! Gertrude does battle for the hair one morning. "I do not call it red," she says, with a decision good to hear from the languid woman. "It is a kind of bright brown, chestnut. Mrs. McLeod's is red." "Auburn, my dear," retorts Mrs. Grandon mockingly. "If you are sensitively polite in the one instance, you might be so in the other. One is light red, the other dark red."