“You say that because you are in love with her,” she answered. “Well, maybe you’re right. But it’s a queer age. I sometimes think we need a new dictionary. My grandchildren--the youngest is ten and extremely sophisticated--talk a different language from mine. It doesn’t matter particularly.” A queer look had come into Matthew’s eyes as the lady had assumed that his remark was a tribute to his wife. “I can’t make out whether you’re a feminist or not.” “Neither can I,” she returned, laughingly. It was a perfect dinner. For so young a hostess it was marvelously well done. Matthew heard them compliment his wife, saw the elder ladies pet her and the men give her those glances of admiration which she had been used to for years. More than one man told him with unusual enthusiasm of his delightful wife, and it was not the men alone who thought so. And afterwards, as the last motor could be heard speeding away, Fliss turned to her husband. “I’ve got a lot to do--a lot to learn,” she said, “but I like it.” “You’re a great success.” “There’s such big stuff ahead,” she mused. “And I’m going after it, Matthew. It gives me something to do. It’s the sort of thing I can do. There’s a reason for all this society. I’m going to go up to the top and find out the reason.” “That’s the deepest thing you ever said,” said Matthew, lighting a final cigarette. “It was a great success,” he repeated, and went on to his library to work for a few hours. Fliss sat still, her eyes in the future as they had been long ago on the night of the High School dance. Work, heights, a future--still ahead. CHAPTER XXVIII The town of Allenby had grown in the five years since the birth of Dorothea Harrison in Mrs. Olson’s house. It had a hotel now, a moving picture house, several emporiums, a Main Street, which was lit up by night and offered a meeting and loafing place for the people who lived there. The hotel was a square frame building, new, still fresh with paint, with kalsomined walls and hardwood floors. It called itself the best hotel in a hundred miles and was fairly accurate. Dick lived there. It amused him at first, after the luxury of his home and his club, to walk down the resounding, uncarpeted corridor to the room which was his own with its golden oak bureau and white iron bedstead and uncomfortable rocking chair. The chair was only used as a clothes rack anyway, so it did not matter whether it was comfortable or uncomfortable. The bed was clean and comfortable and he was always grateful for that. He had made Allenby and the Allenby Hotel his headquarters because that seemed the most natural thing to do, but he did not stay there all the time. There were four or five small towns, most of them a little smaller, one larger, which were also part of his business, for they had grown up around the mines in which his company was interested, and he divided his time more or less among them all.