Deems Duffield was a broker. For fifteen years he had made a debauch of his life and won from it a rare measure of content. When at last Mrs. Duffield decided on divorce, his fortune--his last fortune--had gone the way of his self-respect. It was plain that there would be difficulty in keeping Farge at College. Fortunately, Marcia had no educational conceits. She was at ease with a few lovely gowns: she was informed with a spirit of shrewd economy that amazed her improvident mother. Duffield seldom saw his children: which Marcia considered rather silly. “Why not? He’s delightful company.” She had the wit to enjoy him, perhaps potentially the depravity not to be concerned with his. But Farge was dully loyal and not on speaking terms with his prodigal father. Duffield’s ruinous irresponsibility had broken his son’s spirit. In the example of his father’s evil charm, Farge lost that brusque approach to the demands of life which mark off certain men from the hordes of the mediocre. His cynicism was inept, his anger impotent: his confidence was gone. Adversely, her father’s nature went toward the making of Marcia. It taught her to swim nimbly between rocks, love danger, understand the world. Her cynicism became a deadly intuition of the channels of success: her anger was a sheath preventing the incisions of sentiment and pity: her break with childish faith marked the emergence of a design based on that faith’s falsity. It seemed to her a trait far too emotional in her mother to be angry at the man who had ruined them all. “Leave him be! You know he’s amusing to talk to. Never worry, Mamma. Soon as I’m tired of this I’ll get married and fix you for life.” There was no slightest doubt in Mrs. Duffield of Marcia’s capacity to keep her promise. From her confidence in part came the inspiration to bear up, to borrow dangerous sums of money. For years the Duffields had been spending twice what came in: he on his Broadway favorites, she on her social equipage. But even after Duffield’s strike against paying for his wife’s affairs, even after the first skirmishes of the divorce with their cold proof that the clever broker would be able to escape with a scant alimony, her social functions remained brilliant, her head remained high. Laura Duffield was playing the rôle her faith, her one faith, sanctified. She needed the confessional of youth for the strength to do so. One last time, her husband called on her. A smooth, stout, suave man: smartly groomed, full of sweet words, twinkling of eye.