As Colonel Craighill and his son entered the Club to-day commerce seemed less insistently dominant. Their names had been on many lips; and they were at once the centre of attraction. The ticker curled its tape unnoticed in the basket while the Craighill marriage was discussed. As the two checked their coats the congratulations began, and in the lounging room they were immediately the centre of a group of friends. Wayne, it seemed, was the object of more attention than his father; the “Colonel,” as nearly everyone called him would of course beam in his characteristic way; but Wayne, in his own relation to the matter, was to be viewed in a fresh aspect. There were those among his intimates who chaffed him about his new stepmother. She would, they hinted, undoubtedly visit upon him the traditional contumely of stepmothership. Others re-appraised the Craighill millions with a view of determining just how much the new wife’s advent would cut into the expectations of Mrs. Blair and Wayne. Roger Craighill’s first wife, everyone remembered, had brought him a considerable fortune, and many were now trying to recall how much of this had reposed in him, and how much had passed direct to the children. Dick Wingfield, who crystalized in his own person the Greater City’s aspirations in art and music, declared as he surveyed the large dining room and contemplated the two Craighills in their unusual intimacy, that for the hour Pig Iron had yielded the centre of the stage to Cupid. Many gentlemen left their tables, napkin in hand, to congratulate the Colonel; and Wayne, too, submitted his hand to many grasps, some of them lingeringly sympathetic, others expressive of a general friendliness and liking. The Colonel was a shrewd one, so many remarked; it was a real stroke to present himself to the eye of the Greater City in company with his son on this memorable day. It was not like Colonel Craighill to make a marriage that would estrange his children; the outward and visible acceptance by them of the impending union was indubitably presented in the corner where father and son ate their luncheon together. When there came a lull in the visits to the Craighill table Wingfield lounged thither, and drew up his chair for a chat with Wayne. Not being a hypocrite, Wingfield shook hands with the Colonel but did not refer to the topic of the hour. He addressed himself to Wayne on the prospects of the Greater City’s orchestra for the winter and called his attention to some new pictures at the Art Institute. He mentioned the presence in America of a great French portrait painter with whose work Mr. Craighill was familiar.