His day stretched, empty, before him, but he made himself busy. Each morning he rose at the hour to which his business had accustomed him for years. He bathed and shaved and dressed carefully, as usual. He breakfasted and glanced at the paper, doing both with the little air of hurry that had meant the car waiting outside, or the 8:45 I. C. train to catch. For twenty-five years he had gone downtown daily at a certain time, his face alight with the eager alert expression which meant the anticipation of a heavy mail and a day crowded with orders. He still followed out this programme. But the eager look was absent. His springy step was suddenly heavy, lagging. Belle sometimes wondered where he went--how he filled his day. He belonged to clubs--big, comfortable, prosperous clubs housed on Michigan Boulevard. But clubs, to American business men, meant a place for a quiet business talk at luncheon. During the day they were, for the most part, deserted. Sometimes Charley said, "Lunch with me, father?" "I've got to see a man at twelve. It's a conference. I can't tell how long it'll last." Henry Kemp presented that most tragic of spectacles, the American business man at leisure. In fairness to Belle Kemp it must be said that she did not nag him, or reproach him, or bewail her lot or mope. He would get something, she knew. He had a reputation for business acumen; a standing in the community; hosts of influential friends. Besides, there was money for present needs. They had lived well, the Kemps. Henry had denied his wife and daughter nothing. Still Henry Kemp sensed that his wife was thinking, "Failure." Failure at fifty. She was too much her mother's daughter to think otherwise. So he walked off, jauntily, every morning, with a haste that deceived no one, least of all himself. Ben Gartz got into the way of sending tickets to the Kemps. Tickets for concerts, tickets for war benefits, for the theatre. "I wonder if you wouldn't like to use these? I can't go and I thought----" He heard Charley speak of a book she had tried to get, and failed. He sent to New York for it and had it mailed to her. It was the Bab Ballads. He did not know that she wanted them for Jesse. She and Jesse had read them together often. Now she thought that if she could send them to him if only to amuse him for a day, or an hour even, in the trenches or back of the lines, it would be something. Ben Gartz had never heard of the book but he had written down the name, carefully, in his little leather notebook. When Charley told him that she had sent the volume ($4.50 net) to Jesse, in France, his face wore the strangest look. When Mrs. Payson heard of these things, as she inevitably did, she looked a little aggrieved. "He's been here once since Lottie left--just once. I can't blame him. Lottie treated him like a dog. If ever there was an attentive man. But what's he come to your house so much for?" "Oh, he and Henry----" Belle said lamely.