"Clothes--neckties?" suggested Mrs. Holton. "It's a little deeper than that." "Knack of ordering a dinner?" "Oh, you're putting me in a corner! I'd never thought it all out; but I've always felt a difference. If I'm wrong, there's nobody I'd rather have set me right than you." Her laugh was enthralling. She had no intention of committing herself on the relative advantages of big and little colleges. "Let me see, Mr. Holton, your business is--" "Oh, I'm a broker in investment securities; that's the way they have me down in the Indianapolis Directory." "You advise people what to do with their money and that sort of thing? It's very responsible, I should think, and it must be wearing." Her face reflected the gravity associated with the delicate matter of investments. For a woman whose two matrimonial adventures had left her a stranded dependent she carried this off well, and she could play a part; and he liked people who could carry a part gracefully. She turned so that the firelight fell upon her face and raised a fan to shield her cheek from the heat. Her use of her hands charmed him. He could not recall a more graceful woman in all his acquaintance. He added trim ankles and a discriminating taste in silk hose to his itemized appraisement of her attractions. "If a poor lone woman should come to you with a confession that she owned, say, fifty to a hundred thousand dollars' worth of Government 3's, what would you advise her to do with them?" It was as though she spoke of poetry or the moonlit sea. "Fifty or a hundred!" She could as easily have spoken of a chest of Spanish doubloons, or some other monetary unit of romance. He was flattered that she was taking so much pains with him; a woman who was so fair to look upon might amuse herself at his expense as much as she liked. It was delightful trifling. He felt that it was incumbent upon him to respond in kind. "Oh, I should feel it my duty to double her income--or triple it. Few of us can afford to fool with Governments; but, of course, there are not many first-rate securities that pay high interest. That's where I come in: it's my business to find them for my clients." "What would you recommend--I mean right now--something that would net seven per cent and be safe for the poor widow we're talking about?" "Well," he laughed nervously, "I haven't anything better right now than bonds of the Hornbrook Electric Power at a price to net six." "But--that sounds very conservative. And besides--they say there's not enough water in Hornbrook Creek to furnish power for any great number of mills. The engineer's report was very unsatisfactory--quite so. I looked into that. Should you say that the territory adjacent to the creek is likely to invite--oh, factories, mills, and that sort of thing?"