"You see," he explained, "Farnsworth is going to let me go out and sell as soon as I'm fit, and so I'm putting in a lot of extra time." "Who is Farnsworth?" she inquired. "Why, he's the general manager. I've told you about him." "I remember now. But, Don dear, you aren't going to _sell_ things?" "You bet I am," he answered enthusiastically. "All I'm waiting for is a chance." "But what do you sell?" she inquired. "Investment securities." He seemed rather pleased that she was showing so much interest. "You see, the house buys a batch of securities wholesale and then sells them at retail--just as a grocer does." "Don!" "It's the same thing," he nodded. "Then I should call it anything but an attractive occupation." "That's because you don't understand. You see, here's a man with some extra money to invest. Now, when you go to him, maybe he has something else in mind to do with that money. What you have to do--" "Please don't go into details, Don," she interrupted. "You know I wouldn't understand." "If you'd just let me explain once," he urged. "It would only irritate me," she warned. "I'm sure it would only furnish you with another reason why you shouldn't go about as much as you do." "It would," he agreed. "That's why I want to make it clear. Don't you see that if I keep at this for a few years--" "Years?" she gasped. "Well, until I get my ten thousand." "But I thought you were planning to have that by next fall at the latest." "I'm going to try," he answered. "I'm going to try hard. But, somehow, it doesn't look as easy as it did before I started. I didn't understand what a man has to know before he's worth all that money." "I'm sure I don't find ten thousand to be very much," she observed. "Perhaps it isn't much to spend," he admitted, "but it's a whole lot to earn. I know a bunch of men who don't earn it." "Then they must be very stupid." "No; but somehow dollars look bigger downtown than they do uptown. Why, I know a little restaurant down there where a dollar looks as big as ten." "Don, dear, you're living too much downtown," she exclaimed somewhat petulantly. "You don't realize it, but you are. It's making you different--and I don't want you different. I want you just as you used to be." She fell back upon a straight appeal--an appeal of eyes and arms and lips. "I miss you awfully in the afternoons," she went on, "but I'll admit that can't be helped. I'll give up that much of you. But after dinner I claim you. You're mine after dinner, Don." She was very tender and beautiful in this mood. When he saw her like this, nothing else seemed to matter. There was no downtown or uptown; there was only she. There was nothing to do but stoop and kiss her eager lips. Which is exactly what he did. For a moment she allowed it, and then with an excited laugh freed herself. "Please to give me one of your cards, Don," she said. He handed her a card, and she wrote upon it this:-- "_December sixteenth, Moore cotillion_."