All the world—all his own world of finance and business, at least, gave Hugh Benton credit for being a clever man. It was a common expression among his club and business associates that anyone would have to get up early to put anything over on Hugh Benton. But there would have been smiles, contemptuous, tolerant, amused, could those men have seen Hugh Benton in the hands of a woman as clever as himself, cleverer by far, in her own sphere. For Hugh Benton had never lived by his wits. Geraldine DeLacy’s daily bread depended on hers. She molded him like wax. In her hands he was pliable as a child. It would have astonished even him could he have stood off in an astral body and heard himself discussing his most intimate domestic affairs with a total stranger. He did not know that Mrs. DeLacy was but satisfying her curiosity concerning the rumors she had heard of incompatibility in the Benton family, but Geraldine knew that it took her but one-half hour to discover all she wished to know. But as he talked, becoming each minute more confidential, it seemed less and less that this beautiful woman was a stranger. It was so much to have her sitting next to him, looking at him tenderly, with eyes expressing sympathy and warmth. Her complete understanding of everything he said seemed so thorough. Her capability to grasp intuitively his innermost thoughts amazed him. Geraldine adroitly turned the conversation to herself. She spoke of marriage to a man uncongenial to her every way—a marriage described as a sacrifice to save a home for her people—one of the old families of Virginia,—and then of her widowhood; how Mr. DeLacy had passed away six years ago, after losing his entire fortune, and leaving her a mere pittance of an income, barely enabling her to keep up a respectable appearance. Hugh unconsciously cast a look of surprised inquiry at her magnificent gown. Geraldine shrugged and laughed a little bitterly. “You are looking at my gown,” she interposed quickly. “I’ll tell you a secret, one that I have never confided in another soul—I make all my own gowns. But what is one to do?” She spread her hands in a gesture of mute helplessness. “Remarkable!” Hugh was genuinely admiring. “But it must keep you very busy.” “It does—sometimes I sit up until four in the morning sewing—I can’t let it interfere with any of my social engagements, and still I must do it—it is the only way I can manage at all. Why the price of the gown your daughter is wearing this evening would provide six for me.” “Wonderful little woman!” Hugh reached out daringly to pat her hand. “So few women would be content under such circumstances.”