Mrs. Hoyt had run in to bring a slice of fresh-baked chocolate cake to Cora. She often brought in dishes of exquisitely prepared food thus, but Raymond had never before encountered her. Cora introduced them. Mrs. Hoyt smiled, nervously, and said she must run away and tend to her dinner. And went. Ray looked after her. He strode into the kitchenette where Cora stood, hatted, at the sink. "Say, looka here, Cora. You got to quit seeing that woman, see?" "What woman?" "One calls herself Mrs. Hoyt. That woman. Mrs. Hoyt! Ha!" "Why, Ray, what in the world are you talking about! Aren't you _fun_-ny!" "Yeh; well, you cut her out. I won't have you running around with a woman like that. Mrs. Hoyt! Mrs. Fiddlesticks!" They had a really serious quarrel about it. When the smoke of battle cleared away Raymond had paid the first instalment on a three thousand dollar mink coat. And, "If we could sub-lease," Cora said, "I think it would be wonderful to move to the Shoreham. Lil and Harry are going there in January. You know yourself this place isn't half respectable." Raymond had stared. "Shoreham! Why, it's a hotel. Regular hotel." "Yes," placidly. "That's what's so nice about it. No messing around in a miserable little kitchenette. You can have your meals sent up. Or you can go down to the dining room. Lil says it's wonderful. And if you order for one up in your room the portions are big enough for two. It's really economy, in the end." "Nix," said Ray. "No hotel in mine. A little house of our own. That's the right idea. Build." "But nobody's building now. Materials are so high. It'll cost you ten times as much as it would if you waited a few--a little while. And no help. No maids coming over, hardly. I think you might consider me a little. We could live at the Shoreham a while, anyway. By that time things will be better, and we'd have money saved up and then we might talk of building. Goodness knows I love my home as well as any woman----" They looked at the Shoreham rooms on the afternoon of their anniversary. They were having the Crowd to dinner, downtown, that evening. Cora thought the Shoreham rooms beautiful, though she took care not to let the room-clerk know she thought so. Ray, always a silent, inarticulate man, was so wordless that Cora took him to task for it in a sibilant aside. "Ray, for heaven's, sake say something. You stand there! I don't know what the man'll think." "A hell of a lot I care what he thinks." Ray was looking about the garish room--plush chairs, heavy carpets, brocade hangings, shining table-top, silly desk. "Two hundred and seventy-five a month," the clerk was saying. "With the yearly lease, of course. Otherwise it's three twenty-five." He seemed quite indifferent. Ray said nothing. "We'll let you know," said Cora. The man walked to the door. "I can't hold it for you, you know. Our apartments are practically gone. I've a party who practically has closed for this suite already. I'd have to know."