The Friday night family dinners persisted. Mrs. Payson even continued to administer business advice to the long-suffering Henry. Things that had seemed unbearable in prospect now adjusted themselves well enough. And then Charley had horrified them all by discarding the black uniform of a Shields' employee for the chiffon and fleshings of the Krisiloff Ballet. Belle and even Henry opposed it from the first moment of surprise and disapproval, but Mrs. Carrie Payson fought it like a tigress. They had all thought she would return to Shields'. But she had announced, calmly, her decision never to return. "Go back? Why should I go back there? The thought makes me ill." Her father and mother had received this with amazement. "But Charley, you were promoted just last week. You said you liked it. Let me tell you three thousand a year isn't to be sneezed at by a kid of twenty. In another five----" "Yes, I know. In another five I'll be earning five thousand. I'll be twenty-five then. And in another five I'll be earning ten, and I'll be thirty. And in another five and another five and another five!... And then I'll colour my hair a beautiful raspberry shade, too, just like Healy, and wear imported black charmeuse and maybe my pearls will be real and my manicure grand and glittering, and while I shan't call the stock-girls 'girlie,' I'll have that hard finish. You get it in business--if you're in it for business." "Well, what _were_ you in it for?" "For Jesse, I suppose." They were at dinner at home. Belle left the table, weeping. Charley and her father went on with their meal and their discussion like two men, though Charley did become a little dramatic toward the end. Later Belle, overcome by curiosity at the sound of their low-voiced conversation, crept back, red-eyed, to know the rest. Henry Kemp, wise enough in the ways of women-folk, as well he might be--the one man in that family of women--groped bewildered for a motive in Charley's sudden revolt. "But you liked it well enough, Charley. You liked it real well. You said so. You seemed to be getting a lot of fun out of it. Maybe something's happened down there. Anything wrong?" "Not a thing, Dad. I'm not interested in it any more. It's just that--it's just that--well, you see, Jesse furnished enough colour and light and poetry for both of us. When I say poetry I don't mean verses on paper. I mean rhythm and motion and joy. Does that sound silly to you?" "Why no, Charley, it doesn't sound silly. I guess maybe I get what you mean, sort of." "Well--" Then it was that Belle came creeping back into the room, sniffling. Charley looked up at her calm-eyed. "Mother, I'd like to have you understand this, too. I've been thinking about it quite a lot. I don't want you to imagine I'm just popping off, suddenly." "Off!" Belle snatched at the word.