During this time Paul's attention was concentrated on bringing about a reallotment of American Electric territory in the Middle West, an arrangement that would add several busy cities to his district and make a decided difference in his salary and commissions. He worked early and late in the Endbury office, and made many trips into all parts of the field, to gather data conclusive of the value of his scheme. Lydia had tried hard to get from him information enough to understand what it was all about, but he put her off with vague, fatigued assurances that it was too complicated for her to grasp, or for him to go over without his papers; that it would take him too long to explain, and that, anyhow, she could be sure of one thing--it was all straight, clean business, designed entirely to give the public better service and more work from everybody all 'round. Lydia did not doubt this. It was always a great source of satisfaction to her to feel secure and unshaken trust in her father's and her husband's business integrity, and she was sorry for Marietta, who could not, she feared, count among her spiritual possessions any such faith in Ralph. It was, on the other hand, one of her most unresigned regrets, that she was not allowed to share in these ideals for public service of her husband and father--these ideals so distantly glimpsed by her, and perhaps not very consciously felt by them. It was not that they refused to answer any one of her questions, but they were so little in the habit of articulating this phase of their activities that their tongues balked stubbornly before her ignorant and fumbling attempts to enter this inner chamber. "Oh, it's all right, Lydia! Just you trust me!" Paul would cry, with a hint of vexation in his voice, as if he felt that questions could mean only suspicion. Lydia's tentative efforts to construct a bridge between her world and his met constantly with this ill success. She had had so little training in bridge-building, she thought sadly. One evening that spring, such a futile attempt of hers was interrupted by the son of one of their neighbors, a lad of eighteen, who had just been given a subordinate position in his father's business. As he strolled up to their veranda steps, Lydia looked up from the dress she was enlarging for the rapidly growing baby and reflected that astonishingly rapid growth is the law of all healthy youth. The tall boy looked almost ludicrous to her in his ultra-correct man's outfit, so vividly did she recall him, three or four years before, in short trousers and round-collared shirt-waist. His smooth, rosy face had still the downy bloom of adolescence. "Howd' do, Walter!" said Paul, glancing up from a pile of blue-prints over which he had been straining his eyes in the fading evening light. "Evening," answered the boy, nodding and sitting down on the top step with one knee up. "D'you mind if I smoke, Mrs. Hollister?"