He blenched and mumbled: “Oh, all right! I'll write you a check now.” “Later,” she said. “I don't like to talk much about such things, please.” “Promise me you won't go back.” She simply waived the theme: “Let's talk of something pleasant, if you don't mind.” “Something pleasant, eh? Then I can't ask about--him, I suppose.” “Of course. Why not?” “How is the hound?--begging the pardon of all honest hounds.” She was too sure of her own feelings toward her husband to feel it necessary to rush to his defense--against a former rival. Her answer was, “He's well enough to raise a handsome row if he saw you and me together.” He grumbled a full double-barreled oath and did not apologize for it. She spoke coldly: “You'd better go back to your seat.” She was as severe as a woman can well be with a man who adores her and writhes with jealousy of a man she adores. “I'll be good, Teacher,” he said. “Was he over there with you?” She evidently liked to talk about her husband. She brightened as she spoke. “Yes, for a while. He drove a motor-ambulance, you know, but it bored him after a month or two. They wouldn't let him up to the firing-lines, so he quit. Have you seen him?” “Once or twice.” “He's looking well, isn't he?” “Yes, confound him! His handsome features have been my ruin.” She could smile at that inverted compliment. But Dyckman began to think very hard. He was suddenly confronted with one of the conundrums in duty which life incessantly propounds--life that squats at all the crossroads with a sphinxic riddle for every wayfarer. CHAPTER III Kedzie--to say it again--did not know enough about New York or the world to recognize Mrs. Cheever and Mr. Dyckman when she glanced at them and glanced away. They did not at all come up to Kedzie's idea or ideal of what swells should be, and she had not even grown up enough to study the society news that makes such thrilling reading to those who thrill to that sort of thing. The society notes in the town paper in Kedzie's town (Nimrim, Missouri) consisted of bombastic chronicles of church sociables or lists of those present at surprise-parties. This girl's home was one of the cheapest in that cheap town. Her people not only were poor, but lived more poorly than they had to. They had, in consequence, a little reserve of funds, which they took pride in keeping up. The three Thropps came now to New York for the first time in their three lives. They were almost as ignorant as the other peasant immigrants that steam in from the sea.