The lake wind was fiercely hectoring the bare elm-trees before the house, and the electric globes registered their tortures on the wide reach of the curving roadway. Abner tossed his head carelessly, in proud boast of his own robustness. "What's three blocks?" he asked. "Come into the dining-room and have something," said his host. Abner shrank back. "You know I never take wine." "Wine!" cried Whyland. "You want something different from wine. You want a good hot whisky----" "No," said Abner. "No." The male guests were mostly professional men and representatives of great corporate interests. They talked together in low undertones about familiar concerns during their half-hour or so of grace. "I see you have begun stringing your wires," said one of them to Whyland. "We are meeting with them all over town." "Yes, yes," replied Whyland, with the sprightly ingenuousness of a boy. "Whoever looks for a fair return on his money nowadays must keep a little in advance of legislation." "Just what Pence was saying only yesterday." "I snatched that great truth from my slight association with the Tax Commission," burbled Whyland. "Almost everything marked, spotted: property, real and personal; lands, lots, improvements; bonds, stocks, mortgages----" "Everything, in short, but franchises?" "Franchises, yes. Nothing left but to turn one's attention to the public utilities----" "And to hope that legislation may lag as far behind and as long behind as possible." "Precisely," said Whyland. "Meanwhile, we string our wires----" "Pence up one pole and you up the next--" Whyland shrugged his shoulders and laughed. "And may it be long before they call us down!" Abner listened to all this in silence, shaking his head sadly and conscious of a deep and growing depression. Here was Whyland, a clever, likeable fellow--and his host too--disintegrating before his very eyes. Whyland looked askant at Abner. "Yes, yes, I know," he almost seemed to be saying. "But who can tell if a helping hand, extended at the critical moment, might not have...." XXII "Is that her? Is that her?" asked the children, the nursery door ajar. "Yes, that is 'her,'" said their mother, as Medora, muffled in white and with her violin-case under her arm, slipped along through the hall. "How soon is she going to play? And won't you please let us hear just one piece, mamma?" "You may lean over the banister. But if you let anybody catch you at it----" "How soon is she going to begin?" "Not for some time yet." "Oh-h! Then won't you bring her in so that----" "'Sh! 'sh! And shut the door."