"It's humiliating, that's what it is. Wade Powell had no business making a monkey of me in that way; though it doesn't take much to make a monkey of me; I had the job almost completed myself, just waiting for some one to come along and put the finishing touches on. And Wade Powell did that!" Marley spoke in the sardonic humor the wounded and beaten spirit likes to employ in dealing with itself. But Lavinia hushed him. "You just can not talk that way about yourself, Glenn," she declared with her finest air of ownership. "I won't let you." "Well, it's so humiliating," he said. "Why, no, it can't be that," Lavinia argued. "You can not feel humiliated. You have done nothing that need cause you any humiliation. We are the only ones who can humiliate ourselves; nothing but our own actions can humiliate us; no one else can." Lavinia had a smiling little triumph in her own philosophy, but she quickly compromised it by an inconsistency. "Besides, no one else knows about it." "No," Marley agreed thoughtfully, and without noticing her inconsistency. "No one else knows anything about it. We have that to be thankful for, anyway." CHAPTER XXI CHRISTMAS EVE Lawrence was arranging for a grand ball in the Odd Fellows' Hall, on Christmas Eve, and he had, as he came around to the office one day to assure Marley, counted him and Lavinia in. Marley, glad enough to close the law-book he was finding more and more irksome, listened to Lawrence's enthusiasm for a while, but said at last: "I'm afraid I can't go." "Why not? Lavinia will want to go; she always does." "I know that," Marley admitted, "but I can't, that's all." Lawrence looked at him intently for a moment. "Say, Glenn, what's the matter with you?" he said. "Anything been going wrong lately? You look like you were in the dumps." Marley shook his head with a negative gesture that admitted all Lawrence had said. "You ain't fretting over that job, are you?" "What job?" Marley looked up suddenly. "Why, with Carman." "How'd you know?" "Oh, everybody knows about that," Lawrence replied with a light air that added to Marley's gloom; "but what of it? I wouldn't let that cut me up; come out and show yourself a little more! You don't want to keep Lavinia housed up there, away from all the fun that's going on, do you? Mayme and I were talking about it the other night; you and Lavinia haven't been to a thing for months; it isn't right, I tell you." Marley looked sharply at Lawrence for a minute, and Lawrence marking the resentment in his eyes, hastened on: "Don't get mad, now; I don't mean anything. I'm only saying it for your good. I think you need a little shaking up, that's all." "Lavinia can do as she likes," Marley said with dignity. "I shall not hinder her; I never have."